By Sharon Bernstein
(Reuters) -Details began to emerge on Friday about the 13 U.S. troops killed in the Kabul airport suicide bombing, including an expectant father from Wyoming, a medic from Ohio and a Marine from California who sent home video of himself giving candy to Afghan children.
The U.S. Defense Department has not formally announced the names of the service members killed in the attack in Afghanistan’s capital on Thursday, but family members and public officials spoke about some of them.
Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the attack, carried out during a massive evacuation of U.S. and other foreign nationals as well as some Afghan civilians following the Taliban takeover.
U.S. Marine Kareem Nikoui, 20, was killed in the attack, according to his father Steve Nikoui, who said he was notified by three Marines who arrived at his house on Thursday evening.
The elder Nikoui said his son sent a video home the day before the attack showing him talking to Afghan children and giving them candy at the Kabul airport.
“He was born the same year it started, and ended his life with the end of this war,” Nikoui said from his home in Norco, California, referring to a war that began in 2001.
Nikoui, 49, expressed anger over the situation in Afghanistan.
“I’m really disappointed in the way that the president has handled this, even more so the way the military has handled it. The commanders on the ground should have recognized this threat and addressed it,” Nikoui said.
Also among the U.S. troops killed was Rylee McCollum of Wyoming, who graduated from high school two years ago before joining the U.S. Marine Corps, state officials said on Friday.
Facebook pages appearing to belong to McCollum and his wife show wedding photos from May and indicate that they were expecting a child. His sister Roice McCollum told the Casper, Wyoming, Star Tribune that the baby was due in three weeks.
“He wanted to be a Marine his whole life and carried around his rifle in his diapers and cowboy boots,” Roice McCollum told the newspaper.
Governor Mark Gordon confirmed McCollum’s death on Twitter.
“I’m devastated to learn Wyoming lost one of our own in yesterday’s terrorist attack in Kabul,” Gordon wrote.
McCollum was a 2019 graduate of Jackson Hole High School in Wyoming, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow said.
“Saying that I am grateful for Rylee’s service to our country does not begin to encapsulate the grief and sadness I feel today as a mother and as an American,” Balow said in a statement. “My heart and prayers are with Rylee’s family, friends, and the entire Jackson community.”
Navy medic Max Soviak of Ohio was also killed in the attack, U.S. Senator Rob Portman wrote on Twitter.
His sister Marilyn Soviak remembered him on Instagram, writing, “My beautiful, intelligent, beat-to-the-sound of his own drum, annoying, charming baby brother was killed yesterday helping to save lives.”
Pictures on Max Soviak’s Instagram page showed him laughing on the beach, rock-climbing, skiing and posing with two young children. “Not just an older brother, I’m the cool older brother,” Soviak wrote in 2019.
His last post was more foreboding.
“It’s kill or be killed, definitely trynna be on the kill side,” Soviak wrote on June 10.
The accompanying photo appeared to show him alongside two other troops in uniform holding weapons.
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco, Timothy Reid in Los Angeles, Nathan Layne in New York, Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Julia Harte in New York; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
