Biden’s failure to avenge the Abbey Gate bombing is a national disgrace

That second attack not only killed Haniyeh, it did so in the heart of downtown Tehran, soon after Haniyeh met his patron, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while leaders of virtually every Iranian-backed terrorist group had gathered for the inauguration of the regime’s new supreme leader.

The message was clear: If any of you kill Israelis, there is nowhere you can hide.

Contrast Jerusalem’s resolute response to the slaughter of its citizens with the United States’ failure to do the same. In just a few weeks, we will mark the third anniversary of the Islamic State-Khorasan suicide bombing at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate that killed 13 U.S. service members and injured 45 more. Yet, three years later, not a single person responsible for orchestrating those deaths has received justice.

Immediately after the attack, President Biden struck the pose of a resolute commander in chief, warning that he had “ordered my commanders to develop operational plans to strike ISIS-K assets, leadership, and facilities” and that the United States “will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place we choose, and the moment of our choosing.” And he spoke directly to the terrorists: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”

When the president of the United States makes a promise like that, he’d better deliver.

But Biden didn’t deliver. A few days later, the United States launched a drone strike in Kabul and Biden declared victory: “We struck ISIS-K remotely, days after they murdered 13 of our servicemembers and dozens of innocent Afghans. And to ISIS-K: We are not done with you yet.” Not only had he delivered justice, Biden bragged, he had also delivered proof that the U.S. withdrawal would not hamper our capability to hunt down terrorists who threaten Americans. “We have what’s called over-the-horizon capabilities,” he said, “which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground.”

But, it turned out, Biden’s vaunted “over-the-horizon” capabilities had killed an innocent aid worker for a U.S.-based humanitarian group who was hauling water cans for his family. U.S. targeters, looking at satellite images from thousands of miles away, had mistaken the water jugs for explosives. The strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children. Worse, we soon learned that the Abbey Gate bomber, Abdul Rahman al-Logari, had been securely locked away in the prison at Bagram air base before the bombing, but then was freed by the Taliban after U.S. forces abandoned the base on Biden’s orders. With his disastrous withdrawal, Biden had released the terrorist who went on to kill 13 Americans.

Since his botched strike three years ago, Biden has launched no “over-the-horizon” strikes against ISIS-K terrorists responsible for the attack. He has hunted no one down. He has made no one pay. And apparently, he did forget. In his ill-fated debate with former president Donald Trump, Biden declared “I’m the only president … this decade that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world, like he did.” Really? Tell that to the families of the fallen at Abbey Gate, whose hearts were pierced by his failure to remember their loved ones who had perished on his watch. “It took all self restraint not to put my fist right through my TV,” said Mark Schmitz, whose son Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz was killed in the attack.

This is the American president who is now pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate a settlement with terrorists that would leave Hamas in Gaza. The same tactical genius who knowingly put the safety of U.S. service members securing the Kabul airport in the hands of the Taliban and the Haqqani network — a U.S.-designated terrorist organization — by refusing a Taliban offer to let the U.S. military secure the Afghan capital while we evacuated. The same strategist who handed Bagram air base to our enemies, releasing the suicide bomber who killed 13 Americans. The same commander in chief who made a solemn promise on behalf of a grieving nation to avenge their deaths — and then failed to fulfill it.

Israel took out the Hezbollah commander who they say killed 12 kids in a matter of days, and then eliminated the architect of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust in less than a year. But three years later, Biden has done nothing to punish those responsible for the deaths of the brave Americans who gave their lives executing his catastrophic policy of retreat in Afghanistan.

That is a national disgrace.