Afghanistan Crisis: US President Biden Pays Respects To US Troops Killed In Kabul Airport Blast

Eleven of the 13 Americans killed were Marines. One was a Navy sailor and one an Army soldier.

US President Joe Biden speaks before a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House April 19, 2021, in Washington, DC. | AFP

Dover Air Force Base: President Joe Biden met in solemn privacy on Sunday with the families of the 13 US troops killed in the suicide attack near Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport as the remains of their loved ones returned from Afghanistan.

The President and First Lady Jill Biden were also to attend the dignified transfer of the fallen troops while at the Dover Air Force Base, a military ritual of receiving the remains of those killed in foreign combat.

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Eleven of the 13 Americans killed were Marines. One was a Navy sailor and one an Army soldier.

The dead, who were in the 20 to 31 age group, came from California and Massachusetts and states in between.

They include a 20-year-old Marine from Wyoming who had been expecting his first child in three weeks and a 22-year-old Navy corpsman who in his last FaceTime conversation with his mother assured her that he would stay safe because my guys got me, AP reported.

At their deaths, the 13 young service members were on the ground for the U.S. coda to its longest war, assisting a chaotic evacuation of Americans and of Afghans who helped the US’ war effort and are now fleeing the Taliban after their return to power.

The US President in a statement earlier on Saturday said the 13 service members that we lost were heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others.

The family members of the fallen often travel to Dover to be present as flag-draped transfer cases are taken off the transport plane that returns them to American soil.

Besides the quiet commands of honour guards who carry the transfer cases, the short prayers of the chaplain typically are the only words spoken during the ritual.

Biden's three most recent predecessors as the Presidents all attended dignified transfers for troops killed in the nearly 20-year Afghanistan war.

It will be Biden's first time attending the ritual as the President, but he has been here before.

The 13 troops, who died in Kabul, were the first US service members killed in Afghanistan since February 2020. Former US president Donald Trump’s administration had reached an agreement with the Taliban that called for the militant group to halt attacks on Americans in exchange for Washington’s commitment to remove all American troops and contractors by May 2021.

Earlier in April, Biden announced that he would have all forces out by September.