Parents of fallen United States Marine Kareem Nikoui slammed the Biden administration on Monday for its chaotic handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Nikoui was one of the 13 American military personnel killed in a deadly Aug 26, 2021, suicide bombing carried out by the Afghanistan wing of the Islamic State terror group, ISIS ā Khorasan Province.
The suicide attack happened during the last week of Bidenās botched exit from the Central Asian nation.
āIād like to see General Milley resign,ā Kareemās father Steve Nikoui told Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy in the Monday episode of āFox and Friends.ā
āHe should be held responsible for this. Heās the Joint Chiefs of Staff.ā
āThey let the Taliban dictate the evacuation,ā Nikoui further said. āI donāt feel any of them have been held accountable. And the president, he hasnāt taken any accountability on it either.ā
The deceased Marineās father said that when he questioned Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley during an interaction in Delaware on why the withdrawal was not planned any better, Milley went on the defensive. The general responded in a āhostileā manner, saying the botched withdrawal had been āplanned for months,ā Nikoui recounted.
Prior to the suicide bombing, U.S. intelligence was well aware of a potential attack on Kabul airport by the radical Sunni Islamist militant group.
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A day before the attack, the embassy in Kabul had issued an alert cautioning American citizens āto avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do soā because of security threats.
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In a speech on Aug. 24, two days before the attack, President Joe Biden acknowledged the possibility of an ISIS-K attack on American personnel during his media briefing on the withdrawal, as reported by the New York Post.
Even though the Biden administration had access to this information and knew there was a possibility of a terror attack against American troops in advance, it failed to prevent the attack from occurring.
āIām still waiting for them to be held accountable for it. For some reason, they want to put the blame on everyone but themselves, but it is actually their fault all of this happened,ā Kareemās mother, Shana Chappell, told Fox News. āThe 13 that are dead, that is their fault.ā
The handling of the withdrawal by the president and his political appointees cost him his ratings. According to Newsweek, the chaotic exit from Afghanistan was a āturning pointā after which Bidenās approval ratings stumbled.
Going against estimations by the nationās intelligence agencies, Biden said July 8 that a collapse of the Afghan government was unlikely and the situation wonuldnāt end up like Vietnam, as reported by the New York Times. A month later, the U.S. backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan fell, and images of the U.S. evacuations from Kabul bore an ominous similarity to those from Vietnam.
After tragic visuals from the Biden administrationās Afghanistan fiasco went public, Biden held a press conference on Aug. 16, defending his decision to carry out the withdrawal and pointing fingers at others ā namely the Trump administration and the toppled Afghan government. The president could not even bring himself to answer questions by the press, The Independent reported.
āIām frustrated. We were able to keep our son alive, more importantly, Shana for the last 20 years,ā Nikoui said. āThen he goes and joins the military to serve our country, and our country canāt protect him the way that he needs to be protected.ā
āWe still havenāt got the autopsy report,ā the grieving father told Fox News. āWe have reasons to believe that our son was shot by gunshots.ā
āHe wanted to be a Marine since he was a toddler ⦠it was just something that he had always wanted,ā Chappell said. āItās still kind of unreal that heās even gone.ā
The office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has not responded to The Western Journalās request for comment.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
