Biden to honor 9/11 victims as shadow of Afghan struggle looms

President Joe Biden is about to mark the twenty first anniversary of the Sept. 11 assaults on the Pentagon, a yr after he ended the lengthy and dear struggle in Afghanistan that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the phobia assaults.

In ending the Afghanistan struggle, the Democratic president adopted by way of on a marketing campaign pledge to deliver residence U.S. troops from the nation’s longest battle. However the struggle concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan authorities collapsed within the face of a national Taliban advance that returned the fundamentalist group to energy. A bombing claimed by an Afghanistan-based extremist group killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at Kabul’s airport, the place hundreds of determined Afghans gathered in hopes of escape earlier than the ultimate U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.

White Home Nationwide Safety Council spokesman John Kirby mentioned Biden in his remarks Sunday will acknowledge the influence the 2001 assaults had on the U.S. and the world and honor the almost 3,000 folks killed that day when al-Qaida hijackers took management of economic planes and crashed them into New York’s World Commerce Heart, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania area.

“I believe you’ll hear him speak about how America will keep vigilant to the risk but additionally look to future threats and challenges and be capable to be taught to fulfill these threats and challenges,” Kirby mentioned.

Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan late final month in low-key trend. He issued an announcement in honor of the 13 U.S. troops killed within the bombing on the Kabul airport and spoke by cellphone with U.S. veterans aiding ongoing efforts to resettle in america Afghans who helped the struggle effort.

Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell on Thursday criticized Biden’s dealing with of the top of the struggle and famous that the nation has spiraled downward underneath renewed Taliban rule for the reason that U.S. withdrawal.

“Now, one yr on from final August’s catastrophe, the devastating scale of the fallout from President Biden’s choice has come into sharper focus,” McConnell mentioned. “Afghanistan has turn into a world pariah. Its economic system has shrunk by almost a 3rd. Half of its inhabitants is now struggling essential ranges of meals insecurity.”

First girl Jill Biden will communicate Sunday on the Flight 93 Nationwide Memorial Observance in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband will go to New York Metropolis for a commemoration ceremony on the Nationwide September eleventh Memorial.