Tagged: Afghanistan

August 17th, 2021 Breaking News

Taliban plot next steps as U.S. retreat accelerates

THE WASHINGTON TIMES — A surge of American troops restored order and evacuation flights resumed from Afghanistan’s main international airport Tuesday, while Taliban representatives now ruling Kabul began a publicity blitz to plead for calm and convince the world the militant group has changed its ways since ruling over the Afghan capital with an iron Islamist fist two decades ago.

A top Taliban leader issued a statement ordering the group’s fighters not to enter the homes of ordinary Afghans, while spokesmen claimed they’ll honor women’s rights, as long as those rights fit within the group’s definition of Islamic law — an assurance that fell largely on deaf ears as men, women and children tied to the fallen U.S.-backed government continued to scramble for the exits in Kabul.

The scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport was, however, notably calmer Tuesday than it had been a day earlier when chaos reigned as throngs of people rushed the tarmac and seven Afghans were killed, including several who fell from the wheel well of an American military transport plane after it had left the runway.

Biden administration officials said more than 4,000 U.S. troops are now at the airport, arriving via waves of C-17 transport planes, several of which were later used to ferry U.S. citizens home. Thousands of Afghans are also being housed in third countries or in temporary holding facilities at American military bases.

Pentagon officials said the goal is to move as many as 9,000 passengers a day out of Kabul. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration had set a deadline of Aug. 31 to complete the evacuation amid uncertainty over the extent to which the Taliban may seek to violently halt the operation.

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August 17th, 2021 Breaking News

US General Won’t Respond to Reports of Taliban Capturing American Military Rifles, Weapons

THE EPOCH TIMES — A U.S. general said he won’t respond to reports of Taliban members capturing American military weapons and vehicles.

Photos and video footage over the past week showed large caches of weapons, including M-16 rifles and Humvees, being commandeered by the Taliban, considered by some governments to be a terrorist organization. Taliban members were seen holding American-made M-4 carbines and M-16 rifles that were discarded by Afghan military units.

When asked about the captured military equipment and weapons and whether American forces are attempting to prevent them from falling into the hands of the group, Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor responded: “I don’t have the answer to that question.”

The American rifles are more accurate and have a greater range than the AK-47-style rifles used by the Taliban, although AK-47s are easier to clean and are considered more durable. However, the 5.56mm NATO round that the American weapons use is plentiful and is available to private gun owners in the United States.

There were reports of Taliban members capturing military helicopters. One video appeared to show a Taliban-captured helicopter providing air support.

Q: “Is the U.S. taking any other sort of steps to prevent aircraft of other military equipment from falling into the hands of the Taliban?”

Major General Hank Taylor: “I don’t have the answer to that question.”

Full Pentagon briefing here: https://t.co/VVL5NduAHW pic.twitter.com/unapyd2ACy

— CSPAN (@cspan) August 16, 2021

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August 16th, 2021 Breaking News

US Embassy warns Americans in Kabul to take shelter, says airport reportedly UNDER FIRE amid hasty evacuation of western missions

RT — The US Embassy in Kabul has warned Americans heading for the city’s airport to shelter in place instead, stating that the airport was “taking fire.” The airport is packed with foreign workers hurrying out of Afghanistan.

“The security situation in Kabul is changing quickly, including at the airport,” read a security alert from the embassy on Sunday. “There are reports of the airport taking fire; therefore we are instructing US citizens to shelter in place.”

The embassy had for days been urging Americans in Afghanistan to leave the country, offering them assistance in purchasing plane tickets out. As the Taliban encircled the Afghan capital on Sunday, helicopters ferried embassy staff to the airport, where the US’ diplomatic mission would be rehoused.

American CH-47s over Kabul now, doing shuttle runs between US embassy and airport. pic.twitter.com/jMOcchjT2Y— Kern Hendricks (@kernhendricks) August 15, 2021

The evacuation took place under the protection of thousands of American troops, ordered in by President Joe Biden as the Taliban advanced faster than the US could get its staff out. 

Several other nations have also moved their diplomatic corps to the airport, including France, which relocated on Sunday evening.

Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas said military aircraft will be sent to Afghanistan tonight to pick up remaining German nationals and Afghan support staff.

“The flights will go from Kabul to a neighboring country, for the subsequent transport to Germany we will provide civilian planes,” Maas told reporters. “A core team of the embassy will stay in Kabul at the airport to continue work there and support further evacuations.”

Another Saigon moment: chaotic scenes at Kabul International Airport. No security. None. pic.twitter.com/6BuXqBTHWk— Saad Mohseni (@saadmohseni) August 15, 2021

For any Americans who failed to make it to the airport already, the future is uncertain. An alternately-worded alert seen by reporters states that “The US Embassy in Afghanistan has suspended consular operations effective immediately.” Americans are warned: “Do not come to the Embassy or airport at this time.”

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August 15th, 2021 Breaking News

Joe Biden Blames Afghanistan Collapse On Donald Trump

NEWS PUNCH — Joe Biden is blaming former President Donald Trump for the Taliban taking over Afghanistan as the U.S. military withdraws.

Despite saying a Taliban takeover was ‘unlikely’ just a few weeks ago, Biden issued a statement on Saturday complaining that Trump had negotiated a deal “that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001.”

Breitbart reports: The president said he had the choice of either following through with Trump’s withdrawal plan or sending more troops back into Afghanistan to secure the country.

But Biden set a later date for withdrawal, choosing a new deadline of September 11th before walking it back to August 31.

“I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats,” he said. “I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.”

On Saturday, Biden announced his decision to surge 5,000 American troops into Afghanistan to help ensure the safe evacuation of American personal.

Despite the president blaming his predecessor, Biden signaled he was disillusioned by the Afghanistan conflict:

One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence, would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. An endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.

Biden’s remarks were sharply different from his tone just a month ago when he indicated the Taliban takeover of the country was not inevitable.

“So the question now is, where do they go from here?” Biden said in July about the Taliban’s failure to negotiate a deal with the Afghan government. “The jury is still out. But the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

Biden said he would appoint Ambassador Tracey Jacobson to be in charge of relocating Afghanistan allies in the country to get them out of danger.

“Our hearts go out to the brave Afghan men and women who are now at risk,” he said. “We are working to evacuate thousands of those who helped our cause and their families.”

Trump himself criticized Biden’s handling of the withdrawal in Afghanistan in a statement on Thursday.

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October 18th, 2018 Related News

India, Pakistan, Philippines among 5 countries with most terrorist attacks in 2017

(GULF NEWS) — Almost 59 per cent of all terrorist attacks in 2017 took place in five Asian countries, including India and Pakistan, a US report said Thursday. The other three countries, according to the The annual State Department Country Report on Terrorism, include Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines.

The total number of terrorist attacks worldwide last year decreased by 23 per cent. Similarly, the total deaths due to terrorist violence decreased by 27 per cent, according to the report.

The decline in terrorist violence was largely due to dramatically fewer attacks and deaths in Iraq, Nathan Sales, State Department Coordinator of Counter-terrorism, said during a conference call with reporters on Thursday.

“Although terrorist attacks took place in 100 countries in 2017, they were concentrated geographically. Fifty-nine percent of all attacks took place in five countries. Those are Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Similarly, 70 per cent of all deaths due to terrorist attacks took place in five countries, and those are Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, and Syria,” he said.

The report, he added, notes a number of major strides that the United States and its allies made to defeat and degrade terrorist organizations in 2017. “We worked with allies and partners around the world to expand information sharing, improve aviation security, enhance law enforcement and rule of law capacities, and to counter terrorist radicalization with a focus on preventing recruitment and recidivism,” Sales said.

However, despite these many successes, the terrorist landscape grew more complex in 2017, he said. “ISIS [Daesh – the extremist terrorist group], Al-Qaida, and their affiliates have proven to be resilient, determined, and adaptable,” Sales added. He said foreign terrorist fighters were heading home from the war zones in Iraq and Syria or traveling to third countries to join Daesh branches there.

“We also are experiencing an increase in attacks by home-grown terrorists – that is, people who have been inspired by Daesh but have never set foot in Syria or Iraq. We’ve seen Daesh-directed or Daesh-inspired attacks outside the war zone on soft targets and in public spaces like hotels, tourist resorts, and cultural sites,” Sales said.

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April 30th, 2018 Related News

Slain Young Journalists Saw Their Work As A Way To Make Afghanistan A Better Place

(GANDHARA) — Radio Free Afghanistan journalist Abadullah Hananzai was furious on April 25 when he learned that a former colleague had been gunned down at a market in Kandahar in an apparent targeted killing.

“The murder of my former colleague at Kabul News, a great journalist named Abdul Manan Arghand, has greatly upset me,” Hananzai wrote in Pashto on his Facebook page. “Arghand is now a martyr for freedom of speech.”

It would be Hananzai’s last public Facebook post.

Hananzai and Radio Free Afghanistan video producer Sabawoon Kakar were among multiple journalists killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul on April 30. The journalists were covering an earlier suicide attack when a second bomber, disguised as a reporter, approached them and detonated his explosives.

Maharram Durrani, a 28-year-old university student who was training to become a journalist at the Kabul bureau of RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan, was also killed.

Claimed by Islamic State militants, the blasts killed at least 25 and injured 45. The Afghan Journalists Center said that, with nine reporters killed, it marked the deadliest attack against journalists in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Abadullah Hananzai

Hananzai was a video journalist who had been working since October 2016 on an antinarcotics project at RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan — a project called Caravan Of Poison.

A graduate of Kabul University, Hananzai was 26 years old and was preparing to celebrate his first wedding anniversary on May 8.

He previously had worked for Kabul News and for Zhwandoon TV, as well as for the Educational and Cultural Center for Afghan Women.

Hananzai’s recent reports for RFE/RL focused on the social and economic implications of drug addiction in Afghanistan, as well as efforts by the Interior Ministry to crack down on international narcotics trafficking out of Afghanistan.

One of Hananzai’s last Facebook posts was a message in English on April 19 and a photograph taken of himself in the compound of Radio Free Afghanistan’s Kabul bureau shortly after a rainstorm.

“Feeling fantastic. I find Peace in the Rain,” Hananzai said.

Sabawoon Kakar

Kakar was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene of the first suicide bombing in Kabul on the morning of April 30.

He died from his injuries at a hospital in Kabul several hours after the second blast.

Kakar was a key member of Radio Free Afghanistan’s video team over the past five years.

His work included feature stories about social issues in Afghanistan — such as the status of women’s cricket in the country — as well as news about counterterrorism operations and security issues.

Kakar’s last video report was on April 29 — a package he produced with RFE/RL reporters in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan about a battle between Afghan security forces and Taliban militants.

“He was often covering the aftermath of suicide attacks and other dangerous spot news situations,” said Qadir Habib, a senior editor for Radio Free Afghanistan. “He was a brave man who was never afraid to cover dangerous stories.”

On his Facebook page, Kakar declared that despite bombing attacks against voter registration centers in Kabul, he had registered and planned to vote in Afghanistan’s October 20 parliamentary elections.

The 30-year-old Kakar, a native of Kabul, died one day before his fifth anniversary as an RFE/RL journalist. He is survived by his wife and a two-year-old son.

Maharram Durrani was a third-year student of Islamic law at Kabul University who was just starting her career as a journalist.

Durrani was being trained to take part in the weekly woman’s program RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan — a job she was due to start on May 15.

She previously worked for an Afghan online music channel called Radio Salam Watandar.

“When I began working in media, one of my first bosses asked me why I was studying Islamic law but working in media,” Durrani told RFE/RL during a February phone-in program.

“He said these are not related subjects. But I said, ‘No, that’s not true’,” Durrani explained. “It’s very much related because the media can provide information to all people.”

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April 22nd, 2018 Breaking News

Kabul Bombing Kills 57 in Line for Voter ID Cards

(VOA) — A suicide bomber struck a distribution center for Afghan voters’ identification cards Sunday morning in Kabul, killing at least 57 people and wounding more than 100 others.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najeeb Danish told VOA that people were waiting in line outside the center to get their Tazkira, or identification card, to be able to vote in the election when the bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body.

Hospital sources have described condition of a least ten wounded people as “highly critical”.

Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah has condemned the “terrorist” attack on the center set up in a Kabul school.

“I stand with those affected by this coward attack. Our resolve for fair and transparent election will continue and terrorists won’t win against the will of the Afghan people,” Abdullah wrote on his official Twitter account.

President Ashraf Ghani launched the voter registration process last week, allowing the Independent Election Commission to prepare voter lists for the October 20 parliamentary and district council elections. This will be the first time in Afghani history that elections will be held on the basis of formal voters lists.

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March 15th, 2018 Breaking News

KILLER KIDS ISIS releases harrowing images of children executing prisoners in Afghanistan

(THE SUN) — By Matt Acton

ISIS has released a string of harrowing images which capture young children executing prisoners in Afghanistan.

Boys as young as seven wielding firearms, were photographed marching their victims through a forested area of Khorasan Province.

ISIS released a series of harrowing images showing boys, pictured, taking part in an execution.

Militants in the region, known as IS-KP, said two of the captured men were Afghan government soldiers and the other was a spy.

The men dressed in orange boiler suits, can also be seen kneeling in front of the ISIS militants.

The youngsters stare intently ahead and both have handguns and holsters strapped across their small frames.

ISIS leaders in the Middle East have a long and appalling history of allowing small children to execute captives.

But with the collapse of the regime’s self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the group’s propaganda arm is chronicling atrocities carried out by fighters in the province.

The group’s numbers are being swelled by battle-hardened fighters traveling to the area from the Middle East.

District governor Baaz Mohammad Dawar said a number of Algerian and French nationals entered the largely ISIS-controlled district of Darzab in November.

He said at least two women were among the arrivals, who were traveling with a translator from Tajikistan.

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May 31st, 2017 Breaking News

Massive Kabul truck bomb kills 80, wounds hundreds

(AFT) — At least 80 people were killed and hundreds wounded Wednesday when a massive truck bomb ripped through Kabul’s diplomatic quarter, bringing carnage to the streets of the Afghan capital and blowing out windows several miles away.

Bodies littered the scene and a huge cloud of smoke rose from the highly-fortified area which houses foreign embassies, after the rush-hour attack tore a massive crater in the ground just days into the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

No group has so far claimed the powerful blast, which a Western diplomatic source said was caused by 1,500 kilograms of explosives packed inside a water tanker.

Rescue workers were digging bodies from the rubble hours after the explosion as anguished residents struggled to get through security cordons to search for missing relatives. Dozens of damaged cars choked the roads as wounded survivors and panicked schoolgirls sought safety.

It was not immediately clear what the target was. But the attack suggests a major security failure and underscores spiraling insecurity in Afghanistan, where the NATO-backed military, beset by soaring casualties and desertions, is struggling to beat back insurgents.

Over a third of the country is outside government control.

“Unfortunately the toll has reached 80 martyred (killed) and over 300 wounded, including many women and children,” said health ministry spokesman Waheed Majroh, adding the figures would continue to climb as more bodies are pulled from the debris.

President Ashraf Ghani slammed the attack as a “war crime”.

The Taliban — currently in the midst of their annual “spring offensive” — tweeted that they were not involved and “strongly condemn” the blast. The insurgent group rarely claims responsibility for attacks that kill large numbers of civilians.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for several recent bombings in the Afghan capital, including a powerful blast targeting a NATO convoy that killed eight people earlier this month.

The sound of the bomb, which went off near Kabul’s busy Zanbaq Square, reverberated across the Afghan capital, with residents comparing it to an earthquake. Most victims appear to be civilians.

“The vigilance and courage of Afghan security forces prevented the VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive device) from gaining entry to the Green Zone, but the explosion caused civilian casualties,” NATO said in a statement.

– Embassies damaged –

The BBC said its Afghan driver Mohammed Nazir was killed and four of their journalists wounded. Local TV channel Tolo TV also tweeted that a staff member Aziz Navin was killed.

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April 23rd, 2016 News You Can Use

GINGRICH: Why America needs to get ready for a ‘100-year war’ with radical Islam

(DAILY CALLER via THE COUNTER JIHAD REPORT) by Russ Read

The war against radical Islamic terrorism could go on much longer than anyone is expecting, and the enemy may not give the U.S. any choice but to fight it.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was quite sober in his address Wednesday on the subject of the politics of dealing with radical Islam. Speaking to a room of people packed to the brim on Capitol Hill, Gingrich outlined in a clear and concise manner his belief that combating the terrorist forces within radical Islam will take as many as 100 years. He noted that the choice to go to war had already been made by the enemy, and the U.S. will eventually have no choice but to respond in a massive way.

Though he certainly had ample criticism for President Barack Obama’s current strategies for countering terrorism, calling the President “delusional,” he was willing to point blame for the current situation in multiple directions. “You have to look seriously at why did we fail in Iraq … in Afghanistan.” Gingrich believes that the commission set up to investigate the attacks on September 11, 2001, failed. So too did both Bush and Clinton, and especially Paul Bremer, Bush’s envoy to Iraq after the initial 2003 invasion.

He opened his remarks with a comparison of today’s time to that of former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain just before the outset of World War II. Unlike others who have attempted to draw the comparison as a slight, the former history professor took a different tack.

“Chamberlain was not weak” he explained, referring to the former prime minister crushing his opposition in parliament at the outset of the war, “[he believed] almost any future was worth getting to that did not involve World War II.”

Gingrich said Chamberlain certainly had a point, highlighting the massive death and destruction left in the wake of the conflict. “Look at the scale of World War II, you cant argue that it was successful,” he explained.

He outlined the point that people knew then that another war was going to be bloody, much like those who look at the war on terrorism realize its going to be bloody now.

“It’s not irrational to ask how to avoid that,” said Gingrich, “we could be involved in a 70 to 100 year war … this is going to be hard to communicate,” he continued.

Reality, though, sometimes trumps one’s preferences, and Gingrich believes that the reality of the threat posed by Islamic radicalism and the terrorism it spawns requires a very difficult, and bloody, form of vigilance.

“We are having a difficult time coming to grips with how large this problem is … this is a clash of civilizations,” he said.

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