It has been devastating to hear from the families and friends of the 13 fallen services members killed in the attack on the Kabul airport. Especially as reports come in about possible Intel that warned Biden about the attack in advance. Which makes it all the more enraging to discover that the poorly planned evacuations were taking place in the worst possible location and that a better option did exist.
That’s exactly what the father of Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui blasted Biden over. Steve Nikoui demanded answers from the White House during an interview with Tucker Carlson.
“It was a turkey shoot”, Nikoui explained referring to the bottleneck layout of the Kabul airport.
Nikoui said that he and his entire family have been destroyed by the senseless death of his son. Adding that his wife is ‘doing the best she can’ considering. Nikoui explained how his family was worried something like this might happen, noting that even his son expressed concerns.
“The way that the Taliban had pretty much infiltrated the whole country so fast, and we were kind of just, it seemed, left to just this one little airport, really concerned me,” he said. “And the videos that we were getting and the pictures we were getting from him looked somewhat chaotic.”
Nikoui said they were all still caught off guard when they learned his son was one of the 13 service members killed. Nikoui explained that his son had sent footage of his interactions with the children in Kabul and it put them all at ease a little.
The heartbroken father said that the morning of the attack he and his wife both knew something wasn’t right. He told Carlson that they both woke up feeling uneasy. After reports about the attack came out Nikoui says he began monitoring the news for any indication that their son might be involved. There was nothing. No phone calls. Nothing in the reports.
That’s when the father says he had no choice but to watch the driveway, noting that when a service member dies the Marines will send officers out to notify the family. The father was torn on if he wanted his family there in case a car did come for his son. When it did, Nikoui said that’s when his ‘life changed forever.
“I went down there and met them before they even knocked on the door,” the tearful father continued.
Despite the devastating circumstances, Nikoui said the support he received from the Marines was “incredible.”
“These young men had so much empathy and were so concerned with me and my family,” he said. “I was just in awe and humbled by their performance.”
Nikoui questioned why the Biden administration closed the military airport in Kabul and chose to use the airport just outside of Kabul, instead. Lance Cpl. Nikoui was among 13 service members killed in a suicide bomb attack outside the Abbey Gabe at Kabul airport in Afghanistan, the deadliest day for U.S. troops in 10 years.
