‘We will make you pay’: Biden vows to ‘hunt down’ ISIS-K terrorists behind Kabul airport blasts
Joe Biden has warned those behind the terror attacks at Kabul’s airport: “We will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay.”
The US president was speaking after it emerged that 13 US service personnel – most of them Marines – were among at least 73 people killed after two blasts and a gunfight outside the facility.
Of the 60 Afghans killed 28 were Taliban members according to a Taliban official.
Some 143 people, including 18 US personnel, were injured in the attack, which came 12 days into an effort to evacuate thousands of people – foreign citizens and Afghans – from Kabul.
Dozens of people were killed in the explosion. Pic: TOLOnews
The US and its allies have until the end of August to get out of Afghanistan and Mr Biden said more troops will be sent in if necessary.
Mr Biden said the Americans killed in the attacks were “heroes” who were “engaged in a dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others”.
Speaking from the White House on Thursday evening, Mr Biden said he had asked for plans to strike back at ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate believed to have been responsible for the attacks.
He said: “We will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place of our choosing.
“These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans; we will get our Afghan allies out, and our mission will go on. America will not be intimidated.”
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has confirmed there were no fatalities among British military personnel or government workers.
UK defence sources said one of the blasts was by a hotel where British troops and journalists have been staying, followed by small arms fire, while the second explosion was near Abbey Gate.
ISIS-K have released a picture they claim is of one of the suicide bombers. The caption reads: ‘Martyrdom photograph of Abdul Rahman al-Logari who carried out the martyrdom operation near Kabul airport’
Sky News Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay, who was reporting from the area earlier this week, said: “It was so very clearly a dangerous place to be because of the numbers of people coming through, and the fact that there are no real checks on what people are carrying or wearing to get through into this canal area.”
Ramsay said the attack “is not inside the airport proper (but is near) the perimeter wall of the airport, and it’s one road that leads to the processing area which is initially set up by the British.”
The attacks have increased the pressure on Mr Biden, who had justified the withdrawal as a means of preventing American deaths in what he described as Afghanistan’s civil war.
On 20 August, days after the Taliban took Kabul, Mr Biden told reporters that remaining in Afghanistan any longer could mean he would need to “send your sons, your daughters – like my son was sent to Iraq – to maybe die. And for what? For what?”
But instead of preventing bloodshed, the chaotic evacuation has now resulted in the first US deaths in action in Afghanistan in 18 months.
There were two explosion near the airport, where thousands of people are waiting and hoping to leave Afghanistan
On Thursday evening, Mr Biden again stood by his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, saying: “It was time to end this 20-year war.”
The deadline for withdrawal agreed between the Taliban and Donald Trump during his presidency last year had been May, but Mr Biden pushed this back to the end of August.
Some European leaders had called for the date to be moved back further but the Taliban warned earlier in the week that such a move would be seen by them as crossing “a red line” and would “provoke a reaction”.
Reuters news agency reported that evacuation efforts had accelerated, with planes taking off from Kabul regularly as the US and UK continued to try to get people to safety.
A number of other allies, including Canada and Germany, have announced their missions are over.
US General Frank McKenzie told a Pentagon news conference that about 5,000 evacuees were on the airfield awaiting flights and that as many as 1,000 Americans and many more Afghans were still trying to leave Kabul.
Britain will continue to get people out of Kabul, the prime minister has said
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday that the UK had evacuated more than 13,000 people from Afghanistan and operations would continue.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab added: “The UK and US remain resolute in our mission to get as many people out as possible. It is testament to the remarkable courage of our personnel that they continue to do so while under fire.
“We will not let the cowardly acts of terrorists stop us.”
At least 28 of the 60 Afghans killed in the attack were Taliban members, according to a spokesman.
Earlier, the group had condemned the attack, saying: “The Islamic Emirate strongly condemns the bombing of civilians at Kabul airport, which took place in an area where US forces are responsible for security.
“The Islamic Emirate is paying close attention to the security and protection of its people, and evil circles will be strictly stopped.”
ISIS-K (The Islamic State Khorasan) is an enemy of the Taliban, believing their laws are too soft.
Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again.
Speaking at the White House as he held talks with the new South Korean president Lee Jae Myung, Mr Trump told reporters: “I’d like to meet him this year… I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future.”
“I’d like to have a meeting. I got along great with him,” President Trump said, adding they “became very friendly” during his first term in office.
“We think we can do something in that regard,” he said, adding that he would like to help the relationship between the two Koreas.
Trump and Kim at the demilitarized zone in June 2019. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump and Mr Kim held three meetings between 2018 and 2019 during Mr Trump’s first term and exchanged a number of, what the president called, “beautiful” letters.
In June 2019, Mr Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) with South Korea.
The US president on Monday responded to a question about whether he would return to the DMZ by fondly recalling the last time he did so.
“Remember when I walked across the line and everyone went crazy?” especially the Secret Service, Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
But “I loved it”, Mr Trump said. He added he felt safe because he had a good relationship with Mr Kim.
Mr Trump met South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung at the Oval Office on Monday. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot on North Korean soil six years ago.
However, little progress was made in curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme, and Mr Trump acknowledged in March this year that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power”.
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Since Mr Trump’s first-term meetings with Mr Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.
The White House said in June that Mr Trump would welcome communications with Mr Kim.
The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of Mr Lee, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.
As a gesture of engagement in June, Mr Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the DMZ along their shared border.
Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Mr Lee and Mr Trump than it was in the president’s first term.
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Since then, North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
And it has developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing both troops and weaponry.
Mr Kim told Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported in June.
US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.
The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.
The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.
He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.
He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.
Pic: AP
During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”
A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.
The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.
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NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.
In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”
“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.
In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.
A man who was wrongly deported from the US to El Salvador has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) again.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old originally from El Salvador, handed himself into the ICE field office in Baltimore, Maryland, for a check-in on Monday.
The visit was a mandatory condition of his release from federal custody earlier this weekend. However, in a court filing on Saturday, his lawyers said they expected Garcia would be detained again upon attending.
Garcia is charged in an indictment, filed in federal court in Tennessee, with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.
An emotional Kilmar Abrego Garcia appears outside the ICE Baltimore field office on 25 August 2025. Pic: Reuters
According to a court filing by his lawyers, immigration officials made an offer to Garcia to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to the charges.
Otherwise, they would seek to deport him to Uganda.
Pics: Reuters
Speaking at a news conference outside the ICE office on Monday morning, Garcia said via a translator: “This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us.
“God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Garcia’s lawyers, also said: “There was no need to take him into ICE detention… the only reason they took him into detention was to punish him.”
A judge later ruled Garcia could not be deported after he filed a challenge asking to be allowed due process to fight any removal attempt.
Judge Paula Xinis ruled the 30-year-old must remain detained in the US until she can hold an evidentiary hearing – set for Wednesday.
She added there appeared to be “several grounds” for her to have jurisdiction to exercise relief, including that Uganda has not agreed to offer Garcia protections, such as being able to walk freely, being given refugee status, and not being re-deported to El Salvador.
After initially being detained in Maryland – where he lived with his American wife and children – by ICE in March, Garcia was sent to El Salvador, where he was then imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
Garcia was first detained by ICE in March. Pic: CASA/AP
The Trump administration admitted deporting Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.
After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.
The criminal indictment alleges Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
Minutes after his release on Friday, officials notified Garcia they intended to deport him to Uganda.
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Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.
Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.
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