Vice President Joe Biden vowed that the United States would follow the Islamist State of Iraq and Syria straight “to the gates of hell” because that’s where they will “reside.”
“The American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand,” Biden said in comments flagged by Buzzfeed. “As a nation we are united and when people harm Americans we don’t retreat, we don’t forget. We take care of those who are grieving and when that’s finished, they should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice because hell is where they will reside.”
The comments are some of the most direct to date by a top member of the Obama administration. Biden’s comments at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine on Wednesday, come a day after ISIS released a video showing the group beheading a second U.S. journalist, Steven Joel Sotloff, who had been held as a prisoner.
Audio of Biden’s comments can be heard here.
