Family members of the 13 US service members killed two years ago in the Abbey Gate bombing during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan demanded accountability and answers from the Biden administration on Tuesday in emotional testimony about the withdrawal and their losses.
“Jared, David, Nicole, Taylor, Ryan, Hunter, Riley, Dylan, Kareem, Johnanny, Humberto, Max, and Daegan are not just casualties of war,” Jaclyn Schmitz, the mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, said at a roundtable on Tuesday convened by House Foreign Affairs Republican Chairman Mike McCaul. “They are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, that were pawns in some agenda, and we deserve some information and collaboration from all political parties. It may not be easy, or on your specific schedule or docket, but neither was any of this, for all of us, until it was.”
Parents of several of the 13 killed, seated around the table, gave personal accounts of who their children were before the suicide bombing on August 26, 2021, which killed 11 Marines, one Navy corpsman, and one soldier along with more than 170 Afghan civilians. The bombing came days into a frenzied withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which US service members and allied military members were working to evacuate civilians from Hamid Karzai International Airport. It was the deadliest day for US troops in Afghanistan in roughly a decade.
The families on Tuesday demanded that President Joe Biden say their fallen sons’ and daughters’ names, and “accept accountability” for the withdrawal.
The roundtable was held just days after the two-year anniversary of the bombing. Congress is currently on August recess.
The families’ comments come months after the Biden administration released a summary of findings from an administration-wide after-action review on the withdrawal.
The summary largely placed the blame…
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