Community is among the poorest in the country and the Taliban takeover in August has only exacerbated their hardships.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/10/6/photos-afghanistan-we-wont-eat-tonight-hunger-plagues-afghans-in-historic-valley
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About 100 U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents are ready to leave Kabul, Afghanistan, the State Department announced on Monday.A senior State Department official said that number is not precise because it c…
Source: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/574082-state-department-roughly-100-us-citizens-and-legal-residents-ready-to-leave
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Alex Gangitano
Special envoy urges Security Council to release assets frozen overseas to avoid economic and social collapse.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/un-warns-afghanistan-at-risk-of-total-breakdown
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The American military’s involvement in Afghanistan could soon become largely the Navy’s responsibility, an ironic twist for a counterterrorism mission in a landlocked country.
Although the Navy has long privately bristled at the requirement to deploy one or even two aircraft carriers at a time to the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf to support the ground fights in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the lack of U.S.-controlled airfields near Afghanistan could mean more planes taking off from decks at sea.
And that could set off a fresh round of requests for more funding — and more hand-wringing among those who want the U.S. military to focus more on China.
“I think a lot of that mission is going to fall on the Navy,” said a Navy official who requested to speak on the condition of anonymity because the Pentagon’s plans have yet to be finalized. “This is a great example of why we need more money to operate forward — things like this are what we’re built to do, but we need the funding and support to keep doing it, and that hasn’t always been there.”
Worried about the reemergence of ISIS-K, or an emboldened al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the Biden administration has pledged to continue to launch “over the horizon” airstrikes from drones and manned aircraft. But it has yet to detail a plan for how those aircraft will collect intelligence on targets, or conduct sustained missions from such great distances.
Air Force pilots flying from the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar or Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates have for years hit targets in Afghanistan, but they first have to wind their way through the Gulf around Iran, and back up through Pakistan, refueling at least once and often spending hours in the air before circling over a target.
“Land-based fighters in Qatar or Kuwait may not have the time on station to do close-air support missions for special operations forces,” said Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer now at the Hudson Institute. He said that could lead to the use of more long-loitering drones, and Navy aircraft flown from the North Arabian Sea.
Parking a carrier in the North Arabian Sea cuts some of that flight time, and allows pilots to fly over Pakistan before entering Afghanistan’s air space.
But those deployments mean wear and tear on crews and ships, and also require pulling assets from the Pacific, where the Biden administration says Washington’s true strategic interests lie.
That tension is on full display now. The Japan-based aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan flew F/A-18 Hornets over Kabul during the evacuation operation last month, and remains in the North Arabian Sea alongside the USS Iwo Jima, which launched the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit into Kabul at the same time.
For decades, the U.S. has based an aircraft carrier in Japan to project U.S. power in the Pacific on a consistent basis. The call to send the Reagan to the Middle East this spring raised hackles among China hawks as it left the entire Pacific region without a fully operational aircraft carrier for the entire summer.
Reagan’s absence was perhaps felt most acutely in June, when a large Russian naval task force — the biggest since the end of the Cold War, according to Moscow — edged uncomfortably close to Hawaii, leading the U.S. to scramble F-22s from Pearl Harbor to intercept bombers accompanying the flotilla.
At the time, the Reagan was in the Indian Ocean heading for its Afghanistan mission, and the USS Carl Vinson was still undergoing predeployment drills near Hawaii, practicing launching F-35s for the first time.
The Reagan took over the Middle East mission from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, allowing the ship to finally head home to Virginia after back-to-back deployments that kept it at sea for over 300 of the previous 500 days.
“They were supposed to remain in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic, but they ended up spending most of their deployment in the Middle East,” 2nd Fleet commander Vice Adm. Andrew Lewis told reporters when Eisenhower finally made it home in July.
“The Navy needs to get out from under that weight” of grinding deployments to the Middle East, Bryan Clark said. The Reagan will “likely remain there until relieved since the U.S. is now mounting counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and [drones] may not work for all situations.”
It won’t just be manned aircraft pulled into whatever continuing surveillance and strike missions deemed necessary by the Biden administration, however. Drones will undoubtedly play a significant role, and the relatively limited number of advanced, long-loitering aircraft available at any given time could also pull from the Indo-Pacific Command.
“Most of the airpower that we’ll employ in Afghanistan is going to be unmanned, and my guess is that demand on these assets will go through the roof,” said Bryan McGrath, a former destroyer captain and managing director of the FerryBridge Group consulting firm. That increased demand is unlikely to “make things any easier for the [intelligence and surveillance] tasks necessary for keeping track of the Chinese navy.”
Whatever form the continuing air war in Afghanistan looks like, it will set off rounds of new budgetary requests for the Air Force and Navy, most likely.
“You’re going to hear the Air Force say they’re tied down and they don’t have enough tankers” to refuel planes on long missions, said Brent Sadler, a retired Navy officer at the Heritage Foundation. “So give it to the Navy and let us build more fighters, because we need more fighters.”
On the other hand, “the Navy’s gonna say, ‘we’ll do it, but you’ve got to buy more aircraft carriers.’ So they’re both going to look at it as a chance to buy more stuff.”
In the end, there are only so many carriers available, and these extended deployments have led to longer maintenance periods, which have impacted carrier deployments across the globe.
That material cost “is unlikely to stop [U.S. Central Command] from requesting to have a carrier in the region for over-the-horizon capabilities,” said Becca Wasser at the Center for a New American Security.
For decades, commanders across the Pentagon’s geographic commands have asked for, and received, aircraft carriers to shadow their coastlines, and DoD leadership and the Navy have rarely said no. If the Biden administration stays focused on hunting down ISIS-K and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, that’s unlikely to change in Central Command, even without U.S. troops to support in Afghanistan.
The Navy is getting some help, however. The new British carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is on her maiden cruise through the Pacific, stacked with F-35s flown by British and U.S. Marine pilots. This fall, Navy F-35 pilots will also start flying from a Japanese helicopter carrier, and in 2022 the new $13 billion aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford will deploy for the first time.
With more platforms will undoubtedly come more missions, and more requests. And if the past is prologue, those requests will get the green light.
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/03/afghanistan-ground-war-us-navy-509503
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Paul McLeary
KABUL, Afghanistan — At least four planes chartered to evacuate several hundred people seeking to escape the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan have been unable to leave the country for days, officials said Sunday, with conflicting accounts emerging about why they flights weren’t able to take off as pressure ramps up on the United States to help those left behind to flee.
An Afghan official at the airport in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif said that the would-be passengers were Afghans, many of whom did not have passports or visas, and thus were unable to leave the country. He said they had left the airport while the situation was sorted out.
The top Republican on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, said that the group included Americans and they were sitting on the planes, but the Taliban were not letting them take off, effectively “holding them hostage.” He did not say where that information came from. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the accounts.
The final days of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan were marked by a harrowing airlift at Kabul’s airport to evacuate tens of thousands of people — Americans and their allies — who feared what the future would hold, given the Taliban’s history of repression, particularly of women. When the last troops pulled out on Aug. 30, though, many were left behind.
The U.S. promised to continue working with the new Taliban rulers to get those who want to leave out, and the militants pledged to allow anyone with the proper legal documents to leave. But Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas told “Fox News Sunday” that American citizens and Afghan interpreters were being kept on six planes.
“The Taliban will not let them leave the airport,” he said, adding that he’s worried “they’re going to demand more and more, whether it be cash or legitimacy as the government of Afghanistan.” He did not offer more details.
The Afghan official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said it was four planes, and their intended passengers were staying at hotels while authorities worked out whether they might be able to leave the country. The sticking point, he indicated, is that many did not have the right travel papers.
Residents of Mazar-e-Sharif also said the passengers were no longer at the airport. At least 10 families were seen at a local hotel waiting, they said, for a decision on their fates. None of them had passports or visas but said they had worked for companies allied with the U.S. or German military. Others were seen at restaurants.
The small airport at Mazar-e-Sharif only recently began to handle international flights and so far only to Turkey. The planes in question were bound for Doha, Qatar, the Afghan official said. It was not clear who chartered them or why they were waiting in the northern city. The massive airlift happened at Kabul’s international airport, which initially closed after the U.S. withdrawal but where domestic flights have now resumed.
Searing images of that chaotic evacuation — including people clinging to an airplane as it took off — came to define the final days of America’s longest war, just weeks after Taliban fighters retook the country in a lightning offensive.
Since their takeover, the Taliban have sought to recast themselves as different from their 1990s incarnation, when they last ruled the country and imposed repressive restrictions across society. Women and girls were denied work and education, men were forced to grow beards, and television and music were banned.
Now, the world is waiting to see the face of the new government, and many Afghans remain skeptical. In the weeks since they took power, signals have been mixed: Government employees including women have been asked to return to work, but some women were later ordered home by lower-ranking Taliban. Universities and schools have been ordered open, but fear has kept both students and teachers away.
Women have demonstrated peacefully, some even having conversations about their rights with Taliban leaders. But some have been dispersed by Taliban special forces firing in the air.
Some signs of normalcy have also begun to return. Kabul’s streets are again clogged with traffic, as Taliban fighters patrol in pickup trucks and police vehicles — brandishing their automatic weapons and flying the Taliban’s white flag. Schools have opened, and moneychangers work the street corners.
Among the promises the Taliban have made is that once the country’s airports are up and running, Afghans with passports and visas would be allowed to travel. More than 100 countries issued a statement saying they would be watching to see that the new rulers held to their commitment.
Technical teams from Qatar and Turkey arrived in recent days and are working to get the civilian airport operational.
On Saturday, state-run Ariana Airlines made its first domestic flights, which continued on Sunday. The airport is without radar facilities, so flights are restricted to daylight hours to allow for visual landing, said official Shershah Stor.
Several countries have also been bringing in humanitarian supplies. The Gulf state of Qatar, where the Taliban maintained a political office since 2013, is making daily flights into Kabul, delivering humanitarian aid for the war-weary nation. Bahrain also announced humanitarian assistance deliveries.
Meanwhile, the Taliban stepped up an assault on the last remaining pocket of resistance being led by fighters opposed to their rule.
The anti-Taliban fighters in Panjshir province, north of the Afghan capital, are being led by former vice president Amrullah Saleh, who has appealed for humanitarian aid to help the thousands of people displaced by the fighting.
A senior Taliban spokesman tweeted Sunday that Taliban troops had overrun Rokha district, one of largest of eight districts in Panjshir. Several Taliban delegations have attempted negotiations with the holdouts there, but talks have failed to gain traction.
Saleh fled to Panjshir after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani quit Afghanistan as the Taliban marched on the capital. The fighters’ lightning blitz across the country took less than a week to overrun some 300,000 government troops, most of whom surrendered or fled.
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/05/afghanistan-taliban-evacuees-airport-delayed-509882
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Associated Press
“We’re all ruined,” Ramin Yousuf, a relative of those killed, said. “The family is gone.”
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-drone-strike-targeting-isis-afghanistan-kills-10-civilians-n1278062
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Chantal Da Silva
In a statement, Joe Biden claimed the US was ready for ‘every eventuality’ in its planned withdrawal from Afghanistan while taking responsibility for the execution of the abrupt, deadly and chaotic departure from Kabul.
In an address from the White House, 24 hours after the last US soldier left Kabul, Biden made a case for the US to start looking inward and stop ‘major military operations to remake other countries’
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2021/aug/31/i-take-responsibility-for-the-decision-biden-on-the-us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-video
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How it ended: This image, made through a night-vision scope, shows the final American soldier to depart Afghanistan after America’s longest war.
Driving the news: Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who was coordinating the evacuation, boarded a C-17 cargo plane that lifted off from Kabul at 3:29 p.m. ET on Monday.
How it started: On Oct. 7, 2001 — 7,267 days earlier, nearly 20 years — President George W. Bush announced the invasion, in the aftermath of 9/11: “We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail.”
The toll: 2,461 U.S. service members killed … 20,000 injured … 3,846 U.S. contractors killed … 66,000 Afghan military and police killed … 47,245 Afghan civilians killed … 51,191 Taliban and opposition fighters killed.
The Pentagon announcement came at 4:30 p.m. ET, with Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, speaking remotely from Tampa (shown above with Pentagon press secretary John Kirby).
“It’s a mission that brought Osama bin Laden to a just end along with many of his al-Qaeda co-conspirators,” the general said.
McKenzie acknowledged: “We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out.”
Above: Celebratory gunfire lit up the night sky in Kabul after the last U.S. plane took off — leaving the Taliban back in power, after all that.
President Biden will address the nation Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Source: https://www.axios.com/afghanistan-last-soldier-photo-withdrawal-8ebc3953-0920-410d-a33c-2a063343653e.html
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Mike Allen
Several rockets were fired at Kabul airport on Monday, less than 48 hours before the United States is due to complete its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Eyewitnesses said the rockets were launched from a car and were aimed towards the airport on Monday morning. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2021/aug/30/rockets-fired-at-kabul-airport-as-us-approaches-withdrawal-deadline-video
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Amid the ongoing efforts to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, “why we went there in the first place” has been lost, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday morning.
“We went there to prevent the Taliban from having a regime that would allow terrorists to reconstitute themselves and hit us here at home. It’s been a total success,” McConnell told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
“With the continued deployment of 2,500 people, we were in effect keeping a lid on, keeping terrorists from reconstituting and having a light footprint in the country. The policy was working.”
The United States invaded Afghanistan weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, toppling the Taliban regime. American forces in 2001 were also in pursuit of Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, but he was able to escape to Pakistan; bin Laden was killed there by U.S. Navy SEALS in 2011.
McConnell called the decision to withdraw the U.S. from Afghanistan “one of the worst foreign policy decisions in American history,” adding that “we leave behind exactly what we went in to solve 20 years ago.”
McConnell’s comments echo the rhetoric of many of his fellow Republicans, who argue that President Joe Biden is making a huge mistake by pulling the Americans from the Middle East.
Earlier on Sunday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told CNN’s Jake Tapper that it’s important to “recognize we’re in the position we’re in right now is because of terrible decisions made by two administrations,” referencing both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Sen. Ben Sasse hit the Biden administration for depending on “happy talk” instead of harsh reality as its basis for Afghanistan policy.
“Joe Biden put our forces at risk by having no plan for how to evacuate. We are absolutely at risk, and we are at risk because the president has been so unbelievably weak,” Sasse (R-Neb.) said on ABC‘s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“Abandoning Bagram [Air] Base will be read about in military textbooks for decades as one of the stupidest military blunders ever,” he said.
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/29/mcconnell-afghanistan-reason-lost-507197
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Aubree Eliza Weaver
President Joe Biden vowed to respond “with force” to the terrorists who killed 13 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghans in suicide bombings outside the Kabul airport.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/u-s-retaliates-against-isis-drone-strike-afghanistan-n1277844
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Courtney Kube and Dartunorro Clark
The U.S. has opened a mass COVID-19 vaccination site near the Dulles airport in Northern Virginia for Afghans fleeing the Taliban, the White House said Friday.The site is operated by the Federal …
Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/569758-us-opens-covid-19-vaccination-sites-for-afghan-arrivals
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Nathaniel Weixel
President Biden promised the United States would not suffer a “Saigon Moment” as it withdrew from Afghanistan.The reality has proven even bleaker. The attacks committed around…
Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/the-memo/569652-the-memo-horror-in-kabul-is-political-disaster-for-biden
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Niall Stanage
Fridays For Future—the global climate strike organization that was founded three years ago by Greta Thunberg—is in trouble. On Thursday, the Twitter account repping the group’s activists working in the “Most Affected Peoples and Areas” (MAPA) put out a desperate plea begging for anyone with resources to help evacuate…
Source: https://gizmodo.com/greta-thunberg-urgently-seeks-help-to-evacuate-afghan-1847565795
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Shoshana Wodinsky
Explosion kills at least 11 people, including children, Taliban official says.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/26/explosion-at-kabul-airport-appears-to-be-suicide-attack-official
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Why one Afghan woman refuses to leave her home – even in the face of fear and uncertainty as the Taliban resume control.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/8/26/i-was-born-here-ill-be-buried-here-in-afghanistan-to-stay
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The U.S. has been scrambling not only to evacuate thousands of people each day from Kabul’s international airport, but also to find and prepare places for them to go.
Why it matters: Insufficient processing capacity was a major hurdle early in the evacuation process, and is still an issue as the number of evacuees rises. But the Pentagon says 14 “temporary safe havens” are now available in the Gulf and Europe, and that number is likely to grow.
The big picture: The U.S. has evacuated over 80,000 people from Kabul since Aug. 14, most of them Afghans. But they have not been taken directly to the U.S.
While at those temporary facilities, Afghans will be vetted for security concerns and to ensure their eligibility to enter the U.S. or other third countries.
Those who are cleared to travel to the U.S. are being flown to Dulles airport near Washington, D.C., and then on to one of four U.S. military bases in New Jersey, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Additional U.S. bases are expected to be added.
Details: Asked by Axios for a full list of the facilities in Europe and the Gulf that are or will be temporarily hosting Afghans, a Pentagon spokesman referred Axios to a list of the participating countries but did not provide additional details.
Go deeper: 14 steps to America for Afghan allies.
Source: https://www.axios.com/afghans-kabul-us-spain-germany-uae-kuwait-8d95786f-1494-47d1-9cfe-7311eb3e1501.html
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Dave Lawler
US confirms blast at one of entry gates to Kabul airport hours after western intelligence agencies warned of an imminent terrorist threat
2.55pm BST
From Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor:
British defence sources believe there are no military casualties following the explosion near the Baron hotel – impact on civilians not yet clear.
2.50pm BST
One of the entry gates to Kabul airport has been hit by a large explosion only hours after western intelligence agencies warned of an imminent terrorist threat.
The blast, which was confirmed by Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Twitter appears to have occurred at the Abbey Gate into the international airport, was followed by gunfire and came as several western countries announced the end of their evacuation flights citing an acute threat of an attack possibly within hours.
We can confirm an explosion outside Kabul airport. Casualties are unclear at this time. We will provide additional details when we can.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/aug/26/afghanistan-live-news-updates-evacuation-refugees-taliban-kabul-airport-latest
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Robyn Vinter (now); Lucy Campbell and Helen Sullivan (earlier)
The news comes as Biden is set to decide whether to extend his deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from the country in the wake of the militant group’s rapid takeover.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/biden-decide-extending-afghanistan-withdrawal-deadline-g-7-allies-meet-n1277498
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Yuliya Talmazan and Ken Dilanian and Richard Engel and Courtney Kube and Mushtaq Yusufzai and Winston Wilde
A spokesperson for the Taliban told Sky News Monday there would be “consequences” if the U.S. extended its troop withdrawal beyond Aug. 31 to complete the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies from the country.
Why it matters: The U.S. and its allies are quickly approaching the full withdrawal date with thousands left to still evacuate. President Biden has said troops will remain in Afghanistan until every American is evacuated, and in remarks Sunday, he did not rule out the prospect of staying past the deadline.
What they’re saying: “It’s a red line,” Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said. “President Biden announced that on 31 August they would withdraw all their military forces. So, if they extend it that means they are extending occupation while there is no need for that.”
The big picture: About 10,000 to 15,000 Americans were still in the country as of last Wednesday, according to various reports.
Go deeper: Pentagon enlists commercial airlines to help evacuation efforts
Source: https://www.axios.com/taliban-consequences-troop-withdrawal-afghanistan-59b5162f-237e-4f68-a641-27730e395b6e.html
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Jacob Knutson
