Tuesday marked four years since the Abbey Gate attack, a suicide bombing that took the lives of 13 service members during the withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of the Afghanistan War.
In 2021, then-President Joe Biden removed U.S. troops from Afghanistan following the first Trump administration’s negotiated plan with Taliban leaders to end the conflict in 2020.
During the withdrawal, 13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate, the entrance to then-Hamid Karzai International Airport, while the Taliban were seizing control of Kabul.
President Donald Trump commemorated the anniversary on Monday and called the withdrawal “one of the dumbest days in the history of our country by the previous administration.”
“We remember these great 13 souls, but we also remember the people that were so badly injured, our soldiers, 32 of them approximately,” he said. “We understand that it should’ve never happened, should have never been allowed to have happened.”
In March, the United States arrested Mohammad Sharifullah in connection with the Abbey Gate bombing for allegedly providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization that resulted in death.
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to remove the Taliban from power and dismantle Al Qaeda’s operations after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
During his presidential campaign, Trump made the attack and Biden’s handling of the withdrawal a frequent topic. Family members of some of the killed service members were also honored and appeared onstage at the Republican National Convention in July 2024.
A government-appointed special investigator concluded in a review in 2022 that decisions made by both Trump and Biden contributed to the Taliban’s swift takeover in the region.
Trump honored the Gold Star families at the White House on Monday and signed a proclamation commemorating the Abbey Gate attack.
Also in attendance were Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, who said yesterday was a “rectification of a wrong.”
“The president of the United States lost your loved ones through incompetence, but never acknowledged it in your government, never actually put pen to paper to say, ‘We’re grateful for your sacrifice,’” he said about Biden.
TRUMP FIGHTS FIRE WITH FIRE WITH A BURST OF DOJ INVESTIGATIONS AGAINST POLITICAL FOES
Hegseth said in February that the Pentagon is doing a “complete review” of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“We’re doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened with the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan and plan to have full accountability,” Hegseth said. “We’re taking a very different view, obviously, than the previous administration, and there will be full accountability.”