House honoring 13 US service members killed in 2021 Abbey Gate bombing during Afghanistan withdrawal
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. will host a Gold Medal ceremony for the 13 U.S. service members killed at Abbey Gate during the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Johnson is expected to posthumously present the Gold Medal, Congress’ highest honor, to the 13 fallen Americans who were killed during the August 2021 ISIS-K suicide bombing at the Kabul Airport.
The attack also left roughly 170 Afghans dead. Tuesday’s ceremony comes two days after Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released a scathing 350-page report that took a fine-toothed comb to the military’s 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal and highlighted areas of serious mismanagement.
The Republican-led report opens by harkening back to President Biden’s urgency to withdraw from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s. That, along with the Afghanistan withdrawal, demonstrates a “pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners,” according to the report.
GOLD STAR FAMILIES SLAM KAMALA HARRIS FOR ‘PLAYING POLITICS’ OVER TRUMP’S VISIT TO ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
The report also disputed Biden’s assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and it revealed how state officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them.
On the three-year anniversary of the attack, Trump joined the families of the slain 13 U.S. service members at Arlington National Cemetery.
Biden and Vice President Harris were absent, and though they released statements that day, did not publicly name the 13 fallen.
Harris later accused Trump of playing politics with the visit, but in a series of short videos, eight families said they had invited Trump, and bitterly blasted the Biden-Harris administration over the pullout that left 13 U.S. service members dead three years ago.
The vice president criticized Trump’s team for taking photographs and videos at a wreath-laying ceremony event. The Army said that an Arlington National Cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” while making sure that Trump’s team was “made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”
The Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the botched Afghanistan withdrawal blasted Harris over her attack on Trump’s visit paying respect to the fallen.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips, Nicholas Kalman and Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report.
