‘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.
US
Donald Trump announces dramatic drop in US refugee intake, with most of them white South Africans
The US is drastically cutting the number of refugees it will allow into the country to 7,500, and giving priority to white South Africans.
The new figure, announced on Thursday in a memo in the Federal Registry, the official journal of the US administration, is a dramatic reduction from last year’s 125,000, set by former president Joe Biden.
No reason was given for the decrease, but the note said the admission of the 7,500 refugees during the 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.
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The notice posted to the register’s website said the 7,500 admissions would “primarily” be allocated to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.
It is half the 15,000 total set for 2021 during Donald Trump’s first term in office at the height of the COVID pandemic, which reports said was the previous lowest refugee admissions cap.
Refugee rights groups were quick to condemn the proposal, with International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) president Sharif Aly, saying that by “privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicising a humanitarian programme”.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of Global Refuge, said: “Concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the programme’s purpose as well as its credibility.”
Human Rights First president, Uzra Zeya, called it a “new low point” in US foreign policy, which will “further destabilise front-line states that host over two-thirds of the world’s nearly 43 million refugees, undermining US national security in tandem”.
US President Donald Trump showed South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa printed-out articles in the Oval Office. Pic: AP
In May, Mr Trump confronted South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House, claiming white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.
A video purporting to show burial sites for murdered white farmers was played but was later shown to be scenes from a 2020 protest in which the crosses represented farmers killed over multiple years.
The South African government has vehemently denied that Afrikaners and other white South Africans are being persecuted.
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In January, the US president suspended the US Refugee Admissions Programme (USRAP) to, in his words, allow US authorities to prioritise national security and public safety.
During the Oval Office meeting, Mr Ramaphosa said only that he hoped that Trump officials would listen to South Africans about the issue, and later said he believed there is “doubt and disbelief about all this in [Mr Trump’s] head”.
Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping as “amazing” – and says he will visit Beijing in April.
The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies met in South Korea as they tried to defuse growing tensions – with both countries imposing aggressive tariffs on exports since the president’s second term began.
Aboard Air Force One, Mr Trump confirmed tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US will be reduced, which could prove much-needed relief to consumers.
It was also agreed that Beijing will work “hard” to stop fentanyl flowing into the US.
Semiconductor chips were another issue raised during their 100-minute meeting, but the president admitted certain issues weren’t discussed.
“On a scale of one to 10, the meeting with Xi was 12,” he told reporters en route back to the US.
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‘Their handshake was almost a bit awkward’
Xi a ‘tough negotiator’, says Trump
The talks conclude a whirlwind visit across Asia – with Mr Trump saying he was “too busy” to see Kim Jong Un.
However, the president said he would be willing to fly back to see the North Korean leader, with a view to discussing denuclearisation.
Mr Trump had predicted negotiations with his Chinese counterpart would last for three or four hours – but their meeting ended in less than two.
The pair shook hands before the summit, with the US president quipping: “He’s a tough negotiator – and that’s not good!”
It marks the first face-to-face meeting between both men since 2019 – back in Mr Trump’s first term.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Pic: AP
There were signs that Beijing had extended an olive branch to Washington ahead of the talks, with confirmation China will start buying US soybeans again.
American farmers have been feeling the pinch since China stopped making purchases earlier this year – not least because the country was their biggest overseas market.
Chinese stocks reached a 10-year high early on Thursday as investors digested their meeting, with the yuan rallying to a one-year high against the US dollar.
Analysis: A fascinating power play
Sky News Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith – who is in Busan where the talks took place – said it was fascinating to see the power play between both world leaders.
She said: “Trump moved quickly to dominate the space – leaning in, doing all the talking, even responding very briefly to a few thrown questions.
“That didn’t draw so much as an eyebrow raise from his counterpart, who was totally inscrutable. Xi does not like or respond well to unscripted moments, Trump lives for them.”
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On Truth Social, Mr Trump had described the summit as a gathering of the “G2” – a nod to America and China’s status as the world’s two biggest economies.
While en route to see President Xi, he also revealed that the US “Department of War” has now been ordered to start testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Some of the world’s biggest tech giants reported quarterly earnings on Wednesday – with a mixed bag of results as fears grow that a bubble is forming in artificial intelligence.
Microsoft revealed that its spending on AI infrastructure hit almost $35bn (£26.5bn) in the three months to the end of September, a sharp rise compared with the year before.
Despite revenue jumping 18% and net income rising 12%, shares plunged by close to 4% in after-hours trading, with investors concerned about the mounting costs of sustaining the boom.
Microsoft is now a $4trn company thanks to its stake in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. AP file pic
Microsoft’s vice president of investor relations Jonathan Neilson said: “We continue to see demand which exceeds the capacity we have available.
“Our capital expenditure strategy remains unchanged in that we build against the demand signal we’re seeing.”
Big Tech is facing increasing pressure to show returns on the massive AI investments they’re making, against a backdrop of soaring valuations and limited evidence of productivity gains.
Microsoft became the world’s second most valuable company this week thanks to its 27% stake in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
Its market capitalisation surged beyond $4trn (£3trn) at one point, but that psychologically significant threshold is now in doubt because of recent selloffs.
iStock file pic
Alphabet makes history
Last night’s results weren’t all doom and gloom – with shares in Google’s parent company surging by 6% in after-hours trading.
Alphabet has also set out aggressive spending ambitions, but placated investors thanks to an impressive set of results that surpassed analysts’ expectations.
Total revenue for the quarter stood at a staggering $102.35bn (£77bn), with the search giant’s advertising unit remaining robust despite growing competition.
But concerns linger that Alphabet’s dominance in search could be undermined by AI startups, with OpenAI recently unveiling a browser designed to rival Google Chrome.
Hargreaves Lansdown’s senior equity analyst Matt Britzman shrugged off this threat – and believes the company is “gearing up for long-term AI leadership”.
He said: “Alphabet just delivered its first-ever $100bn quarter, silencing the doubters with standout performances in both Search and Cloud.
“AI Overviews and AI Mode are clearly resonating with users, helping to ease fears that Google’s core search business is under threat from generative AI.
“With ChatGPT’s recent browser demo falling short of a game-changer, Google looks well-placed to put up a strong defence as gatekeeper to the internet.”
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Meta faces a mauling
Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – saw its shares tumble by as much as 10% in after-hours trading.
Mark Zuckerberg’s tech empire anticipates “notably larger” capital expenses next year as it ramps up investments in AI and goes on a hiring spree for top talent.
Net income in the third quarter stood at $2.7bn (£2bn) and suffered an eye-watering $16bn (£12bn) hit because of Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”.
Meta was late to the party on AI but has now doubled down on this still-nascent technology – setting an ambition to achieve superintelligence, a milestone where machines could theoretically outthink humans.
The social networking giant continues to benefit from its massive user base, and expects fourth-quarter revenues of up to $59bn (£44bn).
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