Joe Biden’s bid to complete an already messy U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was rocked after a pair of bombings in Kabul killed dozens of people and marked the most trying day yet of his presidency.
The sheer scale of the tragedy — which saw at least 13 U.S. service members and at least 60 Afghans killed — renewed criticism from lawmakers and allies over the precipitous American withdrawal and the failure to forecast the Afghan government’s rapid fall at the hands of the Taliban.
The attacks also undercut the president’s repeated arguments since taking office that he would offer a steady hand on foreign policy. And the scenes of chaos unleashed by a pair of suicide bombers drowned out efforts to cast the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from Afghanistan as a humanitarian success story.