Former President Trump is expected to attack Vice President Harris on the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing, which killed 13 Americans during the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Republican presidential candidate Trump is scheduled to visit Arlington National Cemetery to pay tribute to the service members killed in the bombing outside Kabul airport, before traveling to Michigan to speak at a conference of the National Guard Association.
Monday marks three years since the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport that killed 13 U.S. soldiers and more than 100 Afghans. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.
Since President Biden gave up on reelection, President Trump has targeted the Democratic presidential nominee Harris and her role in foreign policy decisions, particularly highlighting the vice president’s comments that Harris was the last person in the room before Biden made his decision on Afghanistan.
Harris’ role in Afghanistan withdrawal remains mysterious despite ‘final sit-down’ with Biden
Republican presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“She bragged that she would be the last person left in the room, and she was right. She was the last person left in the room when Mr. Biden and they made the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan,” he said at a rally in North Carolina last week. “She had the final vote. She had the final say and she was totally in favor of it.”
Family members of some of the 13 US service members who were slain took to the stage at the Republican National Convention last month to say that Biden had never publicly mentioned their families’ names.
Democrats have alleged that Trump doesn’t respect veterans and has called soldiers who died in World War II idiots and losers, charges he denies.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris appears on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin, File)
Harris doesn’t mention fatally botched Afghanistan withdrawal in military-focused speech at DNC
Under Trump, the US signed a peace deal with the Taliban that was meant to end America’s longest war and bring US troops home. Biden later mentioned the deal when he tried to shift the blame for the Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan, saying it obligated them to withdraw troops and set the stage for the chaos that has engulfed the country.
Taliban fighters lined up, displaying their weapons, controlling access to Abiy Gate and assembling Afghans with travel documents in the sunshine before moving on, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. (Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
The Biden administration’s withdrawal review acknowledged that the withdrawal of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have begun sooner but blamed the delays on assessments by the Afghan government and military, and U.S. military and intelligence agencies.
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Two of the top U.S. military officials who oversaw the withdrawal said the administration’s withdrawal plan was inadequate. Gen. Mark Milley, the military’s highest-ranking officer and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, told lawmakers earlier this year that he had asked Biden to keep 2,500 remaining troops to provide cover. But Biden decided to keep a much smaller force of 650, limited to guarding U.S. embassies.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
