As the Pentagon pieces together the events that led up to the suicide bombing at the Kabul Airport on Thursday, details are coming in from those on the ground about the heroism of the 13 U.S. service members who died in the blast whose singular mission was to get as many people to safety as possible.
“The Marines who died were the ones who were helping our team,” Cori Shepherd Stern, Oscar-nominated filmmaker and social-change strategist who helped Afghan girls come to school in the U.S., told The New York Times. “These men were quite literally going into the masses and pulling our women to safety, while coordinating with our guy to find them. The men who worked Abbey Gate were brave beyond measure.”
The troops were aware that the airport was being targeted. The day before the attack that killed at least 170 people in total, the State Department warned of “credible” threats at Kabul Airport’s three main gates. Over the last two weeks, and with the help of more than 5,000 U.S troops, over 104,000 people have gotten through and onto airplanes taking them out of the country now being overrun by the Taliban.
According to the Times, the Taliban patrolling checkpoints that lead to the airport pushed back surging crowds twice — but on the third time, a suicide bomber was among them.
The Times reported: “At 5:48 p.m., the bomber, wearing a 25-pound explosive vest under clothing, walked up to the group of Americans who were frisking people hoping to enter the complex. He waited, officials said, until just before he was about to be searched by the American troops. And then he detonated the bomb.”
Wherever their investigation leads them and whatever questions are answered, Marilyn Soviak, the sister of Maxton Soviak, a Navy corpsman from Ohio who was among the dead, only knows one thing for sure: she lost her “baby brother.”
“I’ve never been one for politics and I’m not going to start now,” Soviak posted on Instagram. “What I will say is that my beautiful, intelligent, beat-to-the-sound of his own drum, annoying, charming baby brother was killed yesterday helping to save lives. He was a f—ing medic. There to help people. and now he is gone and my family will never be the same.
“There is a large Maxton sized hole that will never be filled. he was just a kid. we are sending kids over there to die. kids with families that now have holes just like ours. i’m not one for praying but damn could those kids over there use some right now. my heart is in pieces and I don’t think they’ll ever fit back right again.”
On Friday and in retaliation, the U.S. launched a drone strike that killed an ISKP “planner.” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington, DC., “We certainly are prepared and would expect future attempts. We’re monitoring these threats, very, very specifically, virtually in real time.”
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