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Tag: Taliban news

  • Some Pakistan pursuits in battle with US, will think about ties: Antony Blinken

    Pakistan has a “multiplicity of interests” in Afghanistan, together with “some that are in conflict with ours”, United States Secretary of State Antony J Blinken advised Congress on Monday.
    The US, Blinken stated, will probably be its relationship with Pakistan within the coming weeks to resolve what function Washington would need it to play in the way forward for Afghanistan.
    His assertion is important as a result of Pakistan has great affect on the bottom in Afghanistan, with the ISI-backed Haqqani Network calling the pictures within the Taliban cabinet.
    “It (Pakistan) is one that is involved (in) hedging its bets constantly about the future of Afghanistan, it’s one that’s involved (in) harbouring members of the Taliban…,” Blinken advised the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.
    “It is one that’s also involved in different points (of) cooperation with us on counterterrorism,” Blinken added.
    Congressman Joaquin Castro, Democrat from Texas and Chair of the Subcommittee on International Development, International Organisations and Global Corporate Social Impact, requested Blinken whether or not, given Pakistan’s longtime help for the Taliban and the harbouring of the group’s leaders through the years, it was time for the US to reassess its relationship with Islamabad, and its standing as a Major non-NATO ally (MNNA).

    Blinken replied that this was one thing that the US would think about.
    “For the reasons you cited as well as others, this is one of the things we will be looking at in the day and weeks ahead, the role that Pakistan has played over the last 20 years and the role we would want to see it play in the coming years and what it will take for it to do that,” he stated.

    ExplainedPointer to manner aheadThe Biden administration is going through anger on Capitol Hill over the way of the exit from Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s ‘duplicitous’ function. Blinken’s assertion is important for the reason that ISI has big leverage over the Taliban authorities.

    Blinken confronted powerful questions from lawmakers who scrutinised the Biden administration’s response to the scenario in Afghanistan, together with America’s chaotic exit from the nation as Kabul fell to the Taliban and President Ashraf Ghani fled.
    Congressman Bill Keating, Democrat from Massachusetts who’s Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment, and Member of the House Armed Services Committee, described Pakistan’s function as “duplicitous”.

    “They (Pakistan) created, named, and helped the Taliban regroup in 2010 in Pakistan, and the ISI has strong ties with the Haqqani Network which is responsible for the death of US soldiers,” Keating stated. He added that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan had celebrated the Taliban takeover of Kabul, and described it as “breaking the shackles of slavery”.
    “Congress has been told that relations with Pakistan are complicated; I say it is duplicitous,” Keating stated. The US should reassess its relations with Pakistan, he stated.
    India has been reaching out to US lawmakers over the previous few weeks. India’s Ambassador in Washington DC, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, has been discussing points associated to Afghanistan with them.

  • ‘Dead or alive?’: Rumours develop as Taliban’s supreme chief, deputy PM absent from public eye

    Two senior Taliban leaders have gone lacking from public view, resulting in questions in Kabul about whether or not they’re alive or lifeless, a report by The Guardian stated on Tuesday.
    The motion’s supreme chief, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, has not been seen in public ever because the Taliban seized Kabul on August 15. However, a public assertion was issued on his behalf when the brand new authorities was shaped by the Taliban.
    Apart from Akhundzada, rumours are additionally rife about Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of many group’s unique members, being killed or badly injured in a shootout with rivals following talks of inside splits inside the motion.

    “There have been rumours in Kabul that he had been killed or badly injured in a fight with another senior Taliban figure during an argument about how to divide Afghanistan’s ministries,” the report says.
    However, the Taliban on Tuesday rejected claims about Baradar and launched photographs of a handwritten be aware from one among Baradar’s deputies, saying he was in Kandahar. The group additionally shared an audio message purportedly from Baradar.
    “The absence of a video raised more questions with Afghans as the Taliban are no longer an insurgent group in hiding, and Baradar’s face is well known due to his international role,” The Guardian in its report stated.
    Taliban troopers stand at an amusement park in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 8, 2021. (Reuters)
    “Videos and a photo also shared online, purporting to show Baradar in Kandahar, did not feature anything that could confirm when they were taken,” it added.
    According to Reuters, the denials observe days of rumours stating that supporters of Baradar had clashed with these of Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of the Haqqani community, that’s based mostly close to the border with Pakistan and has been blamed for a number of the worst suicide assaults of the warfare.
    Speculation over Taliban leaders has been fed by the circumstances surrounding the loss of life of the motion’s founder, Mullah Omar, which was solely made public in 2015 two years after it occurred, setting off bitter recriminations among the many management.
    The Taliban have repeatedly denied the hypothesis over inside divisions.
    (Inputs from Reuters)

  • Donors pledge $1.1 billion for ‘collapsing’ Afghanistan

    Donors have pledged greater than $1.1 billion to assist Afghanistan, the place poverty and starvation have spiralled for the reason that Islamist Taliban took energy, and international assist has dried up, elevating the spectre of a mass exodus.
    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, talking midway by means of a UN convention in search of $606 million to fulfill Afghanistan’s most urgent wants, stated it was too early to say how a lot had been promised in response to the enchantment.

    After a long time of battle and struggling, Afghans are going through “perhaps their most perilous hour”, he stated. “The people of Afghanistan are facing the collapse of an entire country — all at once.” He stated meals may run out by the tip of this month, and the World Food Programme stated 14 million folks have been on the point of hunger.

    The Taliban dominated Afghanistan in line with their strict interpretation of Islamic regulation from 1996-2001 and have been toppled in an invasion led by the United States, which accused them of sheltering militants behind the Sept. 11 assaults. They swept again to energy final month in a lightning advance because the final US-led NATO troops pulled out and the forces of the Western-backed authorities melted away.
    With billions of {dollars} of assist flows abruptly ending attributable to Western antipathy and mistrust in the direction of the Taliban, donors had a “moral obligation” to maintain serving to Afghans after a 20-year engagement, a number of audio system in Geneva stated. Neighbours China and Pakistan had already supplied assist.
    Human rights issues
    But UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, additionally in Geneva, underlined the Western misgivings. She accused the Taliban of breaking current guarantees by as soon as extra ordering ladies to remain at dwelling fairly than go to work, maintaining teenage ladies out of college, and persecuting former opponents.
    A broken United Nations car parked outdoors the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sept. 2, 2021. Afghanistan desperately wants assist. Nonprofits desperately wish to present it. But the help teams are being examined as by no means earlier than by the uncertainty that has adopted the Taliban takeover. (Jim Huylebroek/The New York Times)
    Beijing final week promised $31 million price of meals and well being provides, and on Friday stated it will ship a primary batch of three million coronavirus vaccines. Pakistan despatched meals and medication, and it known as for Afghan belongings frozen overseas to be launched. Iran stated it had dispatched an air cargo of assist.
    “Past mistakes must not be repeated. The Afghan people must not be abandoned,” stated Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, whose nation has shut relations with the Taliban and would more than likely bear the brunt of an exodus of refugees. Both China and Russia stated the principle burden of serving to Afghanistan out of disaster ought to lie with Western nations.
    “The US and its allies have a greater obligation to extend economic, humanitarian and livelihood assistance,” stated Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

    The United States pledged $64 million in new humanitarian help on the convention, whereas Norway pledged an additional $11.5 million.
    Even earlier than the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul final month, half the inhabitants – or 18 million folks – relied on assist. That seems set to extend attributable to drought and shortages.
    Around $200 million of the brand new cash is earmarked for the UN World Food Programme, which discovered that 93% of the 1,600 Afghans it surveyed in August and September weren’t getting sufficient to eat.
    “Brink of starvation”
    WFP Executive Director David Beasley stated 40% of Afghanistan’s wheat crop had been misplaced, the worth of cooking oil had doubled, and most of the people anyway had no approach of getting cash. While banks have began reopening, the queues for withdrawals are extraordinarily lengthy, and extra importantly, nobody who relied on the federal government for a wage – from civil servants to police – has been paid since July.
    “Fourteen million people, one out of three, are marching to the brink of starvation. They don’t know where their next meal is,” Beasley stated. “If we are not very careful, we could truly, truly enter into the abyss in catastrophic conditions, worse than what we see now.”
    The UN World Health Organisation, additionally a part of the enchantment, desires to shore up a whole bunch of well being amenities vulnerable to closure after donors backed out.
    Antonio Vitorino, head of the International Organisation for Migration, stated the Afghan medical system was “on the verge of collapse”, and WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that positive factors made in the direction of eradicating polio and vaccinating in opposition to COVID-19 may unravel.

    UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned that there may “very soon” be far higher displacement than the estimated half 1,000,000 who’ve already sought refuge elsewhere in Afghanistan this 12 months.
    “The physical distance between our nations and Afghanistan shouldn’t mislead us,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu added. “A humanitarian and security crisis in Afghanistan will have direct implications across the globe. We should take collective action now.”

  • Panjshir resistance entrance chief Ahmad Massoud says he is able to discuss with Taliban

    The chief of the Afghan opposition group resisting Taliban forces within the Panjshir valley north of Kabul mentioned on Sunday he welcomed proposals from non secular students for a negotiated settlement to finish the preventing.
    Ahmad Massoud, head of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), made the announcement on the group’s Facebook web page. Earlier, Taliban forces mentioned that they had fought their approach into the provincial capital of Panjshir after securing the encircling districts.
    The Islamist Taliban took management of the remainder of Afghanistan three weeks in the past, taking energy in Kabul on Aug. 15 after the Western-backed authorities collapsed and President Ashraf Ghani fled the nation.

    “The NRF in principle agree to solve the current problems and put an immediate end to the fighting and continue negotiations,” Massoud mentioned within the Facebook publish. “To reach a lasting peace, the NRF is ready to stop fighting on condition that Taliban also stop their attacks and military movements on Panjshir and Andarab,” he mentioned, referring to a district within the neighbouring province of Baghlan.
    A big gathering of all sides with the Ulema council of spiritual students may then be held, he mentioned. Earlier, Afghan media retailers reported that non secular students had known as on the Taliban to simply accept a negotiated settlement to finish the preventing in Panjshir. There was no rapid response from the Taliban.

    On Sunday, the NRFA additionally confirmed that its most important spokesman, Fahim Dashti, had been killed in the course of the day. Dashti had survived the suicide assault that killed Massoud’s father, Ahmad Shah Massoud, on Sept. 9, 2001, simply days earlier than the Sept. 11 assaults on the United States. He had been one of many most important sources of updates from the realm because the Taliban pressed in on opposition forces, issuing a defiant collection of statements on Twitter, vowing that resistance would proceed.
    Massoud, who leads a pressure made up of remnants of standard Afghan military and particular forces models in addition to native militia fighters, known as for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban earlier than the preventing broke out round every week in the past. Several makes an attempt at talks have been held however finally broke down, with all sides blaming the opposite for his or her failure.
    Men put together for protection towards the Taliban in Panjshir, Afghanistan on Aug. 22, 2021. (Aamaj News Agency through Reuters)
    Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi mentioned earlier on Sunday that their forces had made it into the provincial capital, Bazarak, and had captured giant portions of weapons and ammunition.
    Rugged Valley
    Panjshir, a rugged mountain valley nonetheless suffering from the wreckage of Soviet tanks destroyed in the course of the lengthy conflict within the Nineteen Eighties to oust the Soviet presence, has proved very troublesome to beat up to now.

    Under Ahmad Shah Massoud, the area lengthy resisted management by each the invading Soviet military and by the Taliban authorities that beforehand dominated from 1996 to 2001. But that effort was helped by provide routes main north to the border, which have been closed off by the Taliban’s sweeping victory final month.
    The Panjshir preventing has been probably the most distinguished instance of resistance to the Taliban. But small particular person protests for girls’s rights or in defence of the inexperienced, purple and black flag of Afghanistan have additionally been held in numerous cities.

  • ‘They’ll kill us’ – Afghan pilots held at Uzbek camp concern lethal homecoming

    The U.S.-trained Afghan pilots and others held at a camp in Uzbekistan already feared being despatched again to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. So it was little consolation when an Uzbek guard unsympathetically quipped the opposite day: “You can’t keep right here eternally.
    “The offhand warning added to an already grinding sense of unease on the camp simply throughout Afghanistan’s northern border, recounted one of many Afghan pilots who fled there with plane when floor forces fell to the Taliban in August because the United states and its allies withdrew their forces.

    What follows is the primary, detailed inside account amongst Afghans who, for almost three weeks, have been ready in useless to be evacuated by the United States. “If they send us back, I’m 100 percent sure they’ll kill us,” mentioned the pilot, who declined to be named due to concern of reprisal.
    Speaking to Reuters on a mobile phone that the Afghans there attempt to hold out of sight, the pilot described feeling like a prisoner, with extremely restricted motion, lengthy hours within the solar, and inadequate meals and medication. Some have misplaced weight.
    “We are kind of like in jail,” mentioned the pilot, who estimates the Afghans held there quantity 465. “We have no freedom here.”Late August satellite tv for pc photographs offered to Reuters confirmed excessive partitions surrounding the camp, whose housing models had been used beforehand to deal with COVID-19 sufferers and is close to the town of Termez. Images shared with Reuters from inside confirmed sparse white rooms with bunk beds and no muddle – since most Afghans arrived with simply the garments on their backs.
    Uzbek guards had been armed, some with handguns and others with semi-automatic weapons, the pilot mentioned.
    TALIBAN PRESSURE
    The camp dangers turning into one other disaster for U.S. President Joe Biden, who was criticized left and proper for the poor planning of evacuations that marked the tip of America’s longest conflict and the Islamist militant group’s swift takeover.
    Current and former U.S. officers are crucial of the failure of the U.S. authorities to this point to evacuate the Afghan personnel and plane in Uzbekistan, as present and former U.S. officers warn of Taliban strain on Uzbek authorities handy them over.

    Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, mentioned he was “deeply concerned” in regards to the Afghan pilots and different forces there.”It is crucial that these personnel not fall into the palms of the Taliban each for his or her security and the dear technical information and coaching they’ve,” Reed instructed Reuters.
    John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan, mentioned he believed Uzbekistan confronted actual and substantial strain from the Taliban handy them over.
    “They want to have good relations with Taliban. They don’t want to provoke them, but they also don’t want to provoke us,” mentioned Herbst, now on the Atlantic Council think-tank. He known as for “competent statesmanship.
    “Retired U.S. Brigadier General David Hicks, who commanded the coaching effort for the Afghan Air Force from 2016 to 2017, mentioned the State Department had didn’t act quick sufficient after being provided particulars in regards to the Afghans being held on the camp from a community of present and former U.S. servicemembers and lawmakers.
    “I’m not sure what they’re doing at this point, to be honest,” mentioned Hicks, who’s amongst these working to assist the pilots and their households. A State Department spokesperson mentioned the United States was coordinating with Uzbekistan on the matter however pressured that Afghan personnel and plane had been safe. It urged all of Afghanistan’s neighbors to permit Afghans entry and to respect worldwide legislation towards returning refugees to nations the place they’re more likely to face persecution.
    Uzbekistan’s authorities didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
    DARING ESCAPE
    Even earlier than the Taliban takeover, U.S.-trained, English-speaking pilots had turn into their prime targets. Taliban fighters tracked them down after they went off-base and assassinated some pilots.
    In the ultimate days and hours earlier than shedding the conflict to the Taliban, some Afghan pilots staged a shocking escape by flying 46 plane out the nation earlier than the Taliban might take them – greater than 1 / 4 of the obtainable fleet of about 160 planes.

    Most flew from Kabul however some got here from a base simply throughout the border close to the northern metropolis of Mazar-i-Sharif, fleeing Taliban fighters who had been storming the bottom after floor models collapsed. In a dramatic episode, one of many Afghan plane collided with an Uzbek jet, forcing the pilots to eject.
    The Afghan pilot who spoke to Reuters estimated there have been about 15 pilots who flew A-29 Super Tucano gentle assault plane, 11 pilots who flew UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, 12 pilots who flew MD-530 helicopters and lots of Mi-17 helicopter pilots.
    Besides dozens of pilots, there are Air Force upkeep personnel and different Afghan safety forces on the camp. Some managed to cram members of the family onto plane however most are fearful for his or her family members throughout the border.”There weren’t any extra floor forces. We fought till the final second,” the pilot mentioned.
    One U.S. army official, talking on situation of anonymity, counseled the Afghans in Uzbekistan for taking the planes out of Afghanistan.
    “The only thing they knew to do was to fly every aircraft out of Taliban hands,” the official mentioned, including: “They believed in us.”The Taliban didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the Afghans within the Uzbek camp.
    However, a senior Taliban chief, chatting with Reuters after the autumn of Kabul, mentioned his forces had captured drones and helicopters. But he longed for the return of the Afghan plane in Uzbekistan.”Inshallah we’ll obtain our remaining aircrafts, they aren’t in Afghanistan,” he mentioned.The Taliban, which had no plane but received the conflict, have additionally mentioned they are going to be inviting former army personnel, together with pilots, to hitch their new safety forces. It says there will probably be no reprisal killings.
    BIOMETRIC READINGS
    On Wednesday, officers from the U.S. authorities arrived on the camp to take biometric information from the Afghan personnel there, the pilot mentioned. “Fingerprints and also checking the IDs,” he mentioned.The State Department didn’t reply to a query from Reuters in regards to the go to.
    The look of the U.S. personnel lifted the temper considerably, the pilot mentioned, however there was nonetheless no clear indication of whether or not assist was on its approach. The additional the Taliban will get in establishing its authorities and relations with neighbours, the extra dangerous their scenario might turn into, the pilot mentioned.
    Experts on the area like Herbst, the previous U.S. ambassador, say Uzbekistan has each purpose to hunt a working relationship with the Taliban. That concern is shared among the many Afghans on the camp. “Most of the Air Force personnel, especially the pilots, they are educated in the U.S.,” the pilot mentioned. “They cannot (go to) Afghanistan and also those countries which probably … in the future will have good relations with the Taliban.”
     
     

  • Inside the Afghan evacuation: Rogue flights, crowded tents, hope and chaos

    Written by Michael D. Shear, Lara Jakes and Eileen Sullivan
    On the final day of August, when President Joe Biden known as the airlift of refugees from Kabul an “extraordinary success,” senior diplomats and navy officers in Doha, Qatar, emailed out a each day scenario report marked “sensitive but unclassified.”
    The situations in Doha, based on their description, had been getting worse. Almost 15,000 Afghan refugees had been packed into airplane hangars and wedding-style tents at al-Udeid air base, dwelling to the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing and close by Camp As Sayliyah, a U.S. Army base within the Persian Gulf nation.
    Two hundred and twenty-nine unaccompanied youngsters had been being held close to the bottom, together with many teenage boys who repeatedly bullied youthful youngsters. There had been a “large number of pregnant women,” a few of whom wanted medical consideration, and growing stories of “gastrointestinal issues” among the many refugees.

    The stories had been each day distillations of the complexity, chaos and humanity behind the most important air evacuation in U.S. historical past, as scores of diplomats, troops, well being employees, safety officers and others scattered throughout the globe sought to rescue tens of hundreds of refugees. Whatever plans the Biden administration had for an orderly evacuation unraveled when Kabul fell in a matter of days, setting off a frenzied, last-minute world mobilization.
    Biden and his aides have insisted that the evacuation of Kabul after the Taliban seized the town on Aug. 15 was executed as effectively as potential. But State Department emails, paperwork from the Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Defense departments, in addition to interviews with officers and refugee advocates, recommend in any other case.
    Afghan evacuees undergo well being screenings upon arriving at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, August 31, 2021. (Gordon Welters/The New York Times)
    Within hours of Biden’s speech Tuesday on the White House marking the top of America’s two-decade struggle, a non-public constitution aircraft from Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan’s fourth-largest metropolis, arrived on the air base in Doha — one in all 10 approach stations in eight nations — with no discover, carrying no U.S. residents however tons of of Afghans. The manifest for the aircraft, apparently chartered by a former Marine’s regulation agency, provided “no clarity” about whether or not its passengers deserved particular visas for serving to U.S. troops.
    “There are multiple other ‘rogue’ flights that are seeking the same permissions” to land, emails from State Department officers despatched that day stated. “We have 300 people in Doha now who are basically stateless. Most have no papers.”

    Administration officers have acknowledged the tough situations at Doha, however say they’re working to enhance them. White House officers declined to touch upon the report for this text.
    The whole variety of evacuees, and the place they’re at present ready, continues to be not clear, although Biden stated Tuesday that greater than 120,000 had been evacuated. As of Friday, Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stated about 40,000 individuals had arrived within the United States at airports close to Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. Officials anticipate about 17,000 extra to reach by subsequent Friday and hundreds extra might in the end find yourself dwelling in a dozen different nations.
    Afghanistan evacuees depart Dulles International Airport in Virginia, August 26, 2021.(Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times)
    U.S. officers have stated the refugees are being completely vetted, with the authorities feeding fingerprints, portraits and biographical info into federal databases to weed out potential dangers. Mayorkas stated the Defense Department had despatched tons of of biometric screening machines to 30 nations.
    But unclassified briefing paperwork titled “2021 Afghanistan Repatriation Mission” reveal that in some circumstances, spotty info is being collected: Flight manifests have been at instances incomplete or lacking, visa or citizenship standing is unknown, and there’s a lack of fundamental demographic knowledge.
    The paperwork present that the flights into the United States began as a trickle. On Aug. 19, 4 days after the Taliban seized management of Kabul, 226 individuals on two separate flights arrived at Dulles International Airport. Jordan Air JAV 4825 included 44 canines — however no details about its 58 passengers.
    Ten days later, on Sunday, 13 flights landed at Dulles carrying 3,842 individuals, together with six refugees who examined optimistic for the coronavirus and 6 unaccompanied boys: 4 youngsters, one youthful school-age boy and one toddler. Flight CMB 581, which landed that day at 6:38 p.m., carried 240 passengers. But authorities data present few particulars: “about three” U.S. residents, together with two individuals over 65 and one passenger who examined optimistic for the virus.
    Mayorkas stated of the about 40,000 individuals who had reached the United States from Afghanistan, about 22% had been U.S. residents and authorized everlasting residents and the remaining had been Afghans, together with many who had been vulnerable to retribution by the hands of the Taliban.
    The confusion concerning the refugees started earlier than they left Kabul, as overwhelmed consular officers struggled to establish and confirm those that had legitimate claims to be evacuated.
    A senior State Department official who was in Kabul described a determined scenario on the gates across the metropolis’s airport and crowds that had been so frenzied that officers apprehensive they might slip “into a mob at any given moment.”
    “Every day was a constant improvisational effort to figure out what was going to work that day,” he stated. “And I would say, everybody who lived it is haunted by the choices we had to make.”
    An Afghan mom holds her youngster’s hand as they and different evacuees arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, August 26, 2021. (Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times)
    As they raced to evacuate refugees from Kabul, essentially the most important query dealing with the Biden administration was: the place to place them?
    National safety adviser Jake Sullivan stated the administration had anticipated needing transit facilities for an eventual evacuation. But inside days of the collapse of the Afghan authorities, the Pentagon and the State Department rushed to safe extra agreements with nations in Europe and the Middle East to permit refugees to be housed briefly at 10 U.S. bases — formally referred to as lily pads as a result of the refugees had been supposed to remain there solely a short while.
    At the identical time, navy officers started “Project Allies Welcome,” establishing momentary housing at eight navy bases within the United States.
    The query of what’s going to occur over the long run to refugees who arrive within the United States is a shifting goal.
    Some have arrived with accomplished visa functions in recognition of their service alongside the U.S. navy. Those individuals, and their households, will change into everlasting residents and will earn citizenship.
    But the overwhelming majority of the refugees are being granted what is named “humanitarian parole,” which permits them to reside within the United States for a hard and fast interval, most often two years. They could also be required to use for asylum and can get assist to discover a dwelling within the United States whereas they wait for his or her circumstances to be processed.
    Officials stated they had been contemplating asking Congress to cross laws that would offer the entire refugees with authorized standing, a lot the best way lawmakers did for Cubans within the Sixties and Vietnamese refugees in 1975.
    As of Thursday, greater than 26,100 Afghans recent off planes had been shuttled to a cavernous room close to Dulles, together with 3,800 on Wednesday alone. Officials stated the coming evacuees had been often there for lower than a day for processing — and in some circumstances out in an hour or two — surrounded by the sound of crying infants and exhausted-looking individuals.

    During a tour Thursday night of the hangar-size facility, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was informed that many individuals arrived dehydrated and in want of medical care; a number of girls have given beginning since they arrived within the United States, together with one who had triplets Wednesday. Additional interpreters have been despatched to the middle to make up for a scarcity of employees who spoke Dari or Pashto when it first opened Aug. 22.
    Children ran all through the maze of hallways between curtained-off rooms the place individuals slept, lined with blue blankets. Seeing three youngsters standing off to at least one facet, Blinken stopped, crouched down and launched himself.
    “Welcome to America, my name is Tony,” he stated, tapping his chest. “Nice to meet you.”

  • Controversial assertion of MP Sakshi Maharaj, stated – 40 lakh Muslims had been murdered by clerics after studying Kalma

    HighlightsWhile addressing a program in Unnao, the MP stated – If India is ok, if India stays unbiased, Yogi in UP and Modi on the Center will need to have been banished from Afghanistan, then got here to India: MP Unnao MP Sakshi Maharaj has as soon as once more given a controversial assertion. He stated that those that killed 40 lakh Muslims on the planet weren’t of RSS or Bajrang Dal, however had been killed by clerics after studying Kalma. Sakshi Maharaj was addressing a program organized by Sadar MLA Pankaj Gupta. These had been the individuals who, whereas taking out the tajiya, say, ‘Hi Hussain, we didn’t occur’. These individuals had killed him by studying and reciting the verses of the Quran on the land of Karbala. These individuals are individuals of Talibani considering. He is the enemy of the earth. Campaigning for the social gathering even in floods with a bicycle, this employee of Mau grew to become the poster of BJP, Boysakshi Maharaj didn’t cease right here. He stated that in the event that they had been pushed out of Afghanistan, they got here to India. If God forbids such a state of affairs in India, the place will you go? What is a spot? There isn’t any place however to die by drowning within the sea. The authorities of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Narendra Modi) is important for India to stay unbiased. .

  • The right-wingers who admire the Taliban

    As the Taliban swept by Afghanistan this month, a Gen Z alt-right group ran a Twitter account dedicated to celebrating their progress. Tweets in Pashto juxtaposed two laughing Taliban fighters with photos meant to signify American effeminacy. Another mentioned, the phrases auto-translated into English, “Liberalism did not fail in Afghanistan because it was Afghanistan, it failed because it was not true. It failed America, Europe and the world see it.”
    The account, now suspended, was only one instance of the open admiration for the Taliban that’s developed inside elements of the American proper. The influential younger white supremacist Nick Fuentes — an ally of Arizona Republican congressman Paul Gosar’s and anti-immigrant pundit Michelle Malkin’s — wrote on the encrypted app Telegram: “The Taliban is a conservative, religious force, the U.S. is godless and liberal. The defeat of the U.S. government in Afghanistan is unequivocally a positive development.” An account linked to the Proud Boys expressed respect for the best way the Taliban “took back their national religion as law, and executed dissenters.”
    “The far right, the alt-right, are all sort of galvanized by the Taliban essentially running roughshod through Afghanistan, and us leaving underneath a Democratic president,” mentioned Moustafa Ayad, govt director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia on the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a assume tank dedicated to countering violent extremism. They’re Afghanistan, he mentioned, “from a standpoint of us getting ‘owned,’ in the parlance of the internet.”
    This will not be the primary time that right-wing American extremists have been impressed by Muslim militants; a number of white supremacists lauded al-Qaida’s assaults on Sept. 11. The distinction now’s that the far proper has grown, and the space between the kind of right-wingers who cheer for the Taliban and conservative energy facilities has shrunk.
    Florida Republican Matt Gaetz could also be a clown, however he’s additionally a congressman who was near the earlier president. On Twitter this month, Gaetz described the Taliban, like Trump, as “more legitimate than the last government in Afghanistan or the current government here.”
    Twenty years in the past, within the aftermath of Sept. 11, the United States launched into a battle that might, in time, promote itself as a battle for democracy. Back then, liberal democracy was virtually universally honored in America, which is one purpose we had the hubris to assume we may export it by drive. Many, particularly on the fitting, nervous concerning the risk that jihadism posed to a contemporary, open society. The tragic journey of the previous 20 years started with the loudest voices on the fitting braying for battle with Islamism and ended with a right-wing vanguard envying it.
    At least earlier than Thursday’s devastating terrorist assaults, there was a subtler type of satisfaction with the Taliban’s takeover amongst extra respectable nationalist conservatives. They don’t sympathize with barbarism however had been happy to see liberal internationalism lose. “The humiliation of Afghanistan will have been worth it if it pries the old paradigm loose and lets new thoughts in,” Yoram Hazony, an influential nationalist mental whose conferences function figures similar to Josh Hawley and Peter Thiel, tweeted this month.
    What outdated paradigm? Well, a number of days later, he tweeted, “What went wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan was, first and foremost, the ideas in the heads of the people running the show. Say its name: Liberalism.”
    Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, a very powerful nationalist voice in America, appeared to sympathize with the gender politics of Taliban-supporting Afghans. “They don’t hate their own masculinity,” he mentioned shortly after the autumn of Kabul. “They don’t think it’s toxic. They like the patriarchy. Some of their women like it too. So now they’re getting it all back. So maybe it’s possible that we failed in Afghanistan because the entire neoliberal program is grotesque.” (By “neoliberalism,” he appears to imply social liberalism, not austerity economics.)
    It seems that when the federal government deceptively invokes liberal democracy to justify a battle, liberal democracy may be discredited by a grueling defeat. In his new ebook, “Reign of Terror,” nationwide safety journalist Spencer Ackerman attracts a direct line between our stalemated post-9/11 wars and the rise of Donald Trump. “Trump was able to safely voice the reality of the war by articulating what about it most offended right-wing exceptionalists: humiliation,” he wrote.
    Humiliation is a risky emotion. Many have written about its position in motivating al-Qaida. Perhaps it’s not stunning that elements of the fitting would reply to humiliation by figuring out with photographs of brutal masculinity.
    Some of this identification would possibly simply be for shock worth; the alt-right is adept at utilizing irony to occlude its intentions. But a few of it’s lethal earnest.

    “We’ve come across a lot of content that’s US-based extreme far-right websites saying how good the Taliban victory is, and why it’s good for their cause,” mentioned Adam Hadley, director of Tech Against Terrorism, a U.N.-supported venture that screens extremists on-line. One neo-Nazi web site has a tract hailing the Taliban victory partly for displaying {that a} small band of armed fundamentalists can defeat the American empire.
    As for the remainder of the pro-Taliban proper, the Proud Boys and incels and MAGA splinter factions, a few of them are in all probability simply trolling. But as teams similar to QAnon and the civil war-hungry Boogaloo Bois present, a motion can appear absurd and nonetheless be a supply of actual radicalization. “The classic response to any of this is, ‘Ah, they’re just a fringe group,’ and then when that metastasizes, a lot of people eat their words,” mentioned Ayad.
    If there’s one lesson of latest American historical past, it’s that there’s no such factor as one thing too ridiculous to be harmful.

  • Taliban success in Afghanistan seen as increase for extremists

    A number of days after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, a convoy of militants drove via town of Idlib in northwestern Syria in vehicles bearing the group’s white-and-black flags, honking horns and firing their weapons within the air.
    The celebrations by an al-Qaida affiliate in a distant nook of war-torn Syria have been an expression of the triumph felt by radical Islamic teams from the Gaza Strip to Pakistan and West Africa who see America’s violence-marred exit from Afghanistan a possibility to reassert their presence.
    For such teams, the chaotic US departure following the collapse of safety forces it had educated for twenty years is a present, underlining their message that Washington finally abandons its allies, and that defeating highly effective armies is feasible with sufficient endurance.
    “The success of the Taliban opens the way for radical groups to step up their recruitment operations globally. It is much easier for them now, and there is more receptivity,” mentioned Hassan Abu Haniyeh, an skilled on Islamic militants primarily based in Amman, Jordan.
    Despite the billions of {dollars} spent by the US and NATO over practically 20 years to construct up Afghan safety forces, the Taliban seized practically all of Afghanistan in simply over every week amid the US troop pullout. The fundamentalist group swept into Kabul on Aug. 15 after the federal government collapsed and embattled President Ashraf Ghani fled the nation.
    Since then, tens of hundreds of individuals determined to flee a rustic ruled by the Taliban have been making an attempt to flee or have already got been evacuated in a mammoth Western airlift.
    “The events unfolding in Afghanistan have given jihadi groups and U.S. adversaries reason to celebrate, and America’s allies in the region reason to feel anxious,” mentioned Abu Haniyeh. “They now feel that America might dropthem one day, same as it did the government of Ashraf Ghani.”
    There are issues that Afghanistan will as soon as once more grow to be a base for militants to plot in opposition to the West, very similar to the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults that triggered the U.S. invasion.

    “This is the story that is going to impact and influence jihadi fighters around the globe for the next decade, the same way as the victory over the Soviets in Afghanistan in the ’80s inspired the jihadis around the world during the whole 1990s and even afterwards,” mentioned Elie Tenenbaum, director of safety research heart on the French Institute of International Relations.
    In a twist, the Taliban victory additionally boosted the fortunes of their rivals in Afghanistan- a neighborhood department of the Islamic State community. On Thursday, the affiliate claimed duty for the suicide assault that killed scores of individuals outdoors Kabul’s airport, together with 13 US service members.
    The Taliban now should take care of an emboldened IS, which is difficult their rule with militants which are much more radical. The group’s ranks have been bolstered after the Taliban freed prisoners throughout an advance via Afghanistan.
    An editorial within the Islamic State group’s e-newsletter final week derided the Taliban, accusing them of collaborating with the US.
    “America actually did it. They finally raised a ‘Mullah Bradley’,” the editorial mentioned, utilizing a reputation it has coined for the Taliban in an obvious reference to the US preventing automobile. The group additionally promised a brand new part in its “blessed jihad” in opposition to the West.
    Analysts say the Taliban’s success and the US withdrawal galvanizes and offers a motivational increase to America’s adversaries and jihadi teams all over the world.
    Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah, mentioned in a speech Friday that what’s unfolding in Afghanistan “is a portrayal of America’s full defeat and the U.S. demise and failure in the region.”
    In northern Syria, an announcement by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the al-Qaida affiliate there, mentioned the Taliban victory proved no occupation can final endlessly. The chief of the novel Palestinian Islamic Hamas motion, which guidelines theGaza Strip, congratulated the Taliban’s chief on the demise of the U.S. occupation.
     

    In Pakistan, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad, Mohammad Azhur, used the group’s publication to cheer the Taliban victory, saying it’s going to encourage mujahedeen, or holy warriors, “the world over to continue their struggle for Islam.”Amir Rana, government director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, mentioned the occasions in Afghanistan may encourage hard-line Sunni teams who’re waging sectarian battles in opposition to Shiites. The anti-Shiite teams Lashkar-e-Janghvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan have championed the Taliban victory, elevating fears they may restart their lethal actions.
    Heni Nsaibia, a senior Sahel researcher on the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, mentioned the Taliban takeover could be a motivational increase for extremists in West Africa, displaying that endurance and perseverance can repay.
    The largest hazard, based on the analysts, is in unstable international locations with a weak central authorities and a historical past of insurgency, comparable to Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya.
    There are echoes of 2014, when the Islamic State group sprang from the chaos of conflicts in Iraq and Syria, seized an enormous stretch of territory straddling each international locations, and declared a ‘caliphate’after US-trained Iraqi forces collapsed. Terrorist assaults in Europe and past adopted earlier than IS was defeated in 2017, however makes an attempt to regroup have been seen prior to now two years, with new assaults in Iraq and Syria.
    A report back to the UN Security Council final week mentioned the menace to worldwide safety from the Islamic State group is rising, pointing to an “alarming” enlargement of its associates in Africa and its give attention to a comeback in Syria and Iraq.

    The report mentioned IS and different terrorist teams have taken benefit of |the disruption, grievances and growth setbacks” brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Abu Haniyeh, the analyst in Amman, mentioned the perceived defeat of US forces in Afghanistan by a radical group is reverberating amongst annoyed people all over the world and could have widespread ramifications within the coming years.
    “It gives hope for extremist groups the world over,” he mentioned.

  • Kabul airport blasts LIVE updates: US navy conducts airstrike towards ISIS-Ok planner as blasts’ toll nears 200

    “US military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner. The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangahar Province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties,” a press release by Central Command spokesperson Captain Bill Urban learn.

    Islamic State Khorasan Province is Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan.
    Meanwhile, Hundreds of Afghans determined to flee the Taliban continued to crowd Kabul’s airport Friday, even after one of many deadliest bombings within the nation’s historical past, because the demise toll from the day past’s blast neared 200 with a whole lot extra wounded, maintaining town’s hospitals grimly busy all day. The suicide bombing ripped proper into the jostling throng on Thursday afternoon, piling an adjoining sewage canal with corpses. Health officers stated no less than 170 civilians had been killed, and sure extra. The assault additionally killed 13 US service members.