it would target innocent civilians at the airport. it would come from isis-k. i mean, the president was explicit that with each, passing day that we kept going with these evacuation mission at the airport, an attack like the one we saw today was more likely. would you rather they had been blindsided? no, of course not. they were sounding the alarm that this was the biggest threat to u.s. forces there, and it was getting to be a more dangerous threat every day. they have obviously been doing everything they could to try to prevent this but they knew it was a possibility. the urgency about getting the airlift evacuation mission done and over with has been driven, in part, but explicitly, by what they clearly and repeatedly reiterated was the risk of exactly this kind of attack by exactly this attacker. we expect we we we didn t we thought this would happen sooner or later. it s tragic that it happened today. it s tragic there was this much loss of life. we are prepared to continu
than we had in almost any othert part of the war.e that was ten years ago. today, the u.s. troop presence is at one of our smallest and most concentrated points with d 5,000-or-so u.s. troops concentrated basically exclusively at the airport in kabul. carrying out a mission to evacuate americans, people affiliated with u.s. forces, w afghan allies, and others. and today, u.s. forces had their deadliest day of the afghanistan war since that devastating loss of that chinook ten years ago with those 38 men onboard.o today, for most of the day, the u.s. death toll associated with the suicide bombing in the crowd at the gates of kabul airport. for most of the day, that toll o was 12 u.s. service members, ten u.s. marines and one u.s. navy corpsman. one additional u.s. service member, for whom we do not haven a service affiliation.af but tonight, just as we are t, going to air, the pentagon confirmed that it s not 12, it s 13. an additional u.s. service
these isis terrorists will not win. we will rescue the americans who are there. we will get our afghan allies out. our mission will go on. america will not be intimidated. for those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes america harm, know this. we will not forgive. we will not forget. we will hunt you down and make you pay. i will defend our interests and our people with every measure at my command. will make you pay. and we will continue the mission to get our our allies out. even after what today was the most deadly day for u.s. forces in afghanistan since the worst day of the war and the worst day
he said we will hunt you down and we will make you pay. he s essentially um ordering a new mission. and he said explicitly that he s ordered u.s. military commanders to develop a plan to attack isis-k. this isis group that s claimed responsibility. that s a new mission for u.s. forces in afghanistan. what on top of the evacuation, what do you make of that? well, i we re going to do things from over the horizon, as they say. we ll identify where they are if we can. assembly areas, ammunition stores. locations of leadership and what their positions are. um and then, attack them with long-distance precision-guided munitions. but because we re not on the ground anymore, it becomes extremely difficult for us to exactly pinpoint where all these things are. we re not going to be able to rely on people on the ground. afghans on the ground even to tell us what s going on. we re going to have to listen to lots and lots of phone conversations.
u.s. war in afghanistan for u.s. forces. and at the time this happened, again, ten years ago this month, we were just about ten years into the war. at the time, that chinook was shot down, there was something on the order of 98,000 u.s. personnel in country. 98,000 u.s. troops. it was at a time when our troop presence there was at one of its highest points, one of its most sprawling points. we had more personnel there then and more parts of afghanistan than we had in almost any other part of the war. that was ten years ago. today, the u.s. troop presence is at one of our smallest and most concentrated points with 5,000-or-so u.s. troops concentrated basically exclusively at the airport in kabul. carrying out a mission to evacuate americans, people affiliated with u.s. forces, afghan allies, and others. and today, u.s. forces had their