(NEXSTAR) – President Joe Biden said on Saturday that additional terrorist attacks at Kabul's airport — like the one carried out on Aug. 26 — remain "highly likely" as the U.S. military works to evacuate citizens from Afghanistan in the coming days.
The president's statements also confirmed that U.S forces are planning to carry out additional retaliatory strikes against ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate group that claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26 attack which claimed the lives of 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. servicemembers.
"I said we would go after the group responsible for the attack on our troops and innocent civilians in Kabul, and we have. This strike was not the last. We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay," said President Biden, in part.
The president's statements come the same day the Pentagon confirmed two members of ISIS-K had been killed in a retaliatory drone strike in response to the attack at Kabul's airport.
When briefing the press about the strike, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the two members who were killed were "planners and facilitators" for ISIS-K, but did not reveal their specific roles in the attack.
“We have the ability and the means to carry over the horizon counterterrorism capabilities and we’re going to defend ourselves," Kirby said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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