Pete Hegseth says big announcement coming on Abbey Gate task force findings after Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal

The Biden administration was tasked with removing the US military from Afghanistan and when they did so, haphazardly, 13 service members were killed at Abbey Gate and millions of dollars worth of military equipment was left behind.

In March, Hegseth announced that the ISIS terrorist who was behind the Abbey Gate suicide bombing had been captured. He said unequivocally that the initiative to hold that terrorist accountable started under the Trump administration. They caught the guy with the help of Pakistan.

"Well, special thanks to Pakistan, indeed, they cooperated with us," Hegseth said at the time. "But this started, I want to be very clear, under this administration. We had our leadership, Director Radcliffe and others in CENTCOM and in the military, passing information to the Pakistanis who helped us action it after this president was elected.

"So this is a president who saw what happened, the debacle in Afghanistan, and said, when I'm president, I will make sure those who perpetrated the death of 13 Americans and the injury of dozens others, we will find them. We will keep our word. We partnered with the Pakistanis based on intelligence we provided. They nabbed him, positively identified him. We've known that for a few days. He's on his way, I believe, already in the United States and will face justice," Hegseth said.

In the wake of the withdrawal, the extremist Islamic Taliban group took over the country again, implementing harsh laws against women, preventing their voices from being heard in public, preventing them from leaving their homes without full modesty covering that blocks their face and eyes, and even barring them from being seen through the windows of their own homes.

President Joe Biden was harshly criticized for the withdrawal, which had been promised by the outgoing Trump administration. During his first term, President Donald Trump had vowed to get the US out of the decades-old war in Afghanistan. Biden was not on board with the plans when he took office in 2021, but found he was obliged to abide by the agreement made by his predecessor.

While many in the GOP wanted Biden to stick to the plan to withdraw troops, they were opposed to the method used to carry out that plan. As the US military departed from Afghanistan, many Afghans lined up hoping to leave as well, specifically those who had earned their income working for the US Armed Forces and feared retaliation under the incoming Taliban regime.

Afghans climbed onto the exterior of planes hoping to make it to a safe port in another nation, only to plummet to their death. Many Afghans became refugees and sought refugee status within the US under a promise from the Biden administration.

The second Trump administration found that these Afghans had not been properly vetted, leaving many to wait in Pakistan for their refugee visas to come through. The Trump administration put a travel ban into effect for nations that could not properly vet people before allowing them to travel to the US.

Pakistan has been trying to send these people home and has blamed them for many terrorist acts in Pakistan, including a train hijacking that lasted for over 30 hours. 380 passengers were aboard the Jaffar Express when it was taken over by the Afghanistan-based Balochistan Liberation Army.