Earlier in the day, the US issued warnings of an "specific, credible" terror threat, and asked US citizens to steer clear of the airport and airport gates. The warning was echoed by US President Joe Biden, US State Department and the US embassy. A similar advisory was issued prior to Friday's terror attack that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 US service members. In retaliation, the US said it killed two ISIS-K militants responsible.
Hundreds of Afghans desperate to flee the Taliban continued to crowd Kabul’s airport Friday, even after one of the deadliest bombings in the country’s history, as the death toll from the previous day’s blast neared 200 with hundreds more wounded, keeping the city’s hospitals grimly busy all day. The suicide bombing ripped right into the jostling throng on Thursday afternoon, piling an adjacent sewage canal with corpses. Health officials said at least 170 civilians had been killed, and likely more. The attack also killed 13 US service members.
Kabul attack: As bombing’s death toll soars to 170, desperate Afghans seek any exit
Hundreds of Afghans desperate to flee the Taliban continued to crowd Kabul’s airport Friday, even after one of the deadliest bombings in the country’s history, as the death toll from the previous day’s blast neared 200 with hundreds more wounded, keeping the city’s hospitals grimly busy all day.
The size of the crowd at the airport had dropped sharply, however, with fear paring the numbers down to hundreds from the thousands of previous days. The suicide bombing ripped right into the jostling throng Thursday afternoon, piling an adjacent sewage canal with corpses. Health officials said at least 170 civilians had been killed, and likely more.
The Taliban wants to maintain Afghanistan’s trade, economic and political relations with India, senior leader of the outfit Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai has said while describing it as an important country in the region. In a video address in Pashto, Stanekzai said consultations with various groups and political parties are going on to form a government in Kabul that will have representations from people from “different walks of life”. Read More
The Taliban will allow all foreign nationals and Afghan citizens with travel authorisation from another country to leave Afghanistan, according to a joint statement issued by Britain, the United States and other countries."We have received assurances from the Taliban that all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries will be allowed to proceed in a
safe and orderly manner to points of departure and travel outside the country," they said in the statement. Reuters
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Militant fire from across the border in Afghanistan killed two Pakistani soldiers on Sunday, the army said. The army said it retaliated and killed two or three attackers. The incident in Pakistan's Bajaur district is the first of its kind reported since the Taliban took over Afghanistan. --Reuters
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled his willingness to help the Taliban develop Afghanistan. --AP
The US has safely evacuated more than 5,500 American nationals from Afghanistan including about 50 people in the last day and there are nearly 250 Americans who are trying to leave the war-torn country, the State Department said on Sunday. Chaos has enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan's government collapsed and the Taliban seized control on August 14. --PTI
The Taliban said that a US airstrike hit a suicide bomber who wanted to attack the Kabul international airport amid the American military's evacuation there. According to AP, the two strikes (the rocket and this) initially appeared to be separate incidents, though information on both were very limited.
U.S. President Joe Biden headed to Dover Air Force Base on Sunday to honor members of the U.S. military killed in a suicide bomb attack during the evacuation of civilians from Kabul airport last week. An Islamic State suicide bombing just outside Kabul airport on Thursday killed scores of Afghans and 13 American troops. Biden and his wife, Jill, will meet the families of service members killed in the attack, a White House schedule showed.They will then witness the transfer of the troops' remains from an aircraft flown to the base in Delaware. --Reuters
Jake Sullivan said US will not have an Embassy presence in Afghanistan from September 1.
According to Afghan police chief, a rocket hit the northwest neighbourhood of Kabul airport killing a child.
Days after two blasts at Kabul airport claimed close to 200 lives, sound of another powerful explosion has been heard in the Afghan capital, TOLO News reported. According to the Afghanistan media channel, a number of social media users posted pictures saying that the explosion took place near Kabul airport. Information on the type of blast and resultant casualties are awaited.
French President Emmanuel Macron Sunday said France and Britain will submit a proposal at an emergency United Nations meeting planned for Monday suggesting the creation of a safe zone in Kabul to protect people trying to leave the country, Reuters reported.
Military planes carrying British troops and diplomats from Kabul are landing at a UK air base after the U.K.'s two-week evacuation operation ended. The U.K. ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, was among those who arrived Sunday at RAF Brize Norton northwest of London, hours after the government announced that all British personnel had left Kabul. Britain says it has evacuated more than 15,000 U.K. citizens and vulnerable Afghans in the past two weeks but that as many as 1,100 Afghans who were entitled to come to the U.K. have been left behind. --AP
Military planes carrying British troops and diplomats from Kabul are landing at a UK air base after the U.K.'s two-week evacuation operation ended.
The U.K. ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, was among those who arrived Sunday at RAF Brize Norton northwest of London, hours after the government announced that all British personnel had left Kabul. (AP)
Afghan athletes Zakia Khudadadi and Hossain Rasouli have arrived in Tokyo, via what’s been described as a harrowing journey from Kabul to Paris, to compete in the Paralympics.
For now, they are sequestered in the Paralympics Village alongside Tokyo Bay, will not be available for media interviews during their stay _ before or after they compete. And where they go after the Games close on Sept. 5 is unclear.
The International Paralympic Committee said they arrived in Tokyo from Paris early on Saturday evening, having passed all the required COVID-19 tests to enter Japan. IPC spokesman Craig Spence said they’d need a few days to get their bearing and needed some privacy. (Read more)
The Venice International Film Festival has invited Afghan filmmakers Sahraa Karimi and Sahra Mani to talk about the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan with “particular attention to the situation of filmmakers and artists” since the hardline religious group seized control of the country.
According to Biennale’s official website, the panel will take place September 4 at 3 pm at the Palazzo del Casino (Lido of Venice), in the Press Conference Room. (Read more)
Joe Saboe pressed his fingers against his brow in exhaustion and leaned over a laptop as he tried to do what had been drilled into him over and over when he was an Army infantry officer: Leave no one behind.
“Roger, I’ve got six AmCits, at least six,” he said into his cellphone, using shorthand for American citizens, while simultaneously texting with a military source in Kabul, Afghanistan. “I can get them to the rally point at wheels up, but they’re not going to leave without their families, I need to make that happen.”
Saboe, 36, deployed to Iraq years ago and now is the chief executive of a small startup and a youth soccer coach. But this past week he became an unofficial commander in an impromptu network of veterans and citizen volunteers who came together to execute an ad hoc mission to get American citizens and Afghan allies safely out of Kabul before the American airlift ends. (Read more)
US forces are in the final phase of leaving Kabul, ending two decades of involvement in Afghanistan, and just over 1,000 civilians at the airport remain to be flown out before troops withdraw, a Western security official said on Sunday.
A band of veteran Afghan leaders, including two regional strongmen, are angling for talks with the Taliban and plan to meet within weeks to form a new front for holding negotiations on the country's next government, a member of a group said.
Khalid Noor, son of Atta Mohammad Noor, the once-powerful governor of northern Afghanistan's Balkh province, said the group comprised of veteran ethnic Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum and others opposed to the Taliban's takeover.
"We prefer to negotiate collectively, because it is not that the problem of Afghanistan will be solved just by one of us," Noor, 27, told Reuters in an interview from an undisclosed location. "So, it is important for the entire political community of the country to be involved, especially the traditional leaders, those with power, with public support," Noor said. Atta Noor and Dostum, veterans of four decades of conflict in Afghanistan, both fled the country when the northern city of Mazar-i Sharif fell to the Taliban, the hardline Islamist group, without a fight. (Reuters)
British troops have left Kabul, ending the UK’s evacuation operation and its 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the “heroic” evacuation effort, even as the government acknowledged some eligible Afghan civilians had been left behind. The UK’s top military officer conceded that “we haven’t been able to bring everybody out.” (Read more)
Whipped by the Taliban and shoved from behind by other desperate Afghans, marriage certificate in hand, Sharifa Afzali thrust her cell phone at the US soldier barring the Kabul airport gate. On the other end was her husband, a US Army veteran in Oklahoma.
“I told her, ‘Hey, see if he’ll talk to me on the phone.’ I didn’t think he would do it, but he did,” said Hans Wright, who pleaded with the soldier to bend the rules for the visa-less woman he loves. “And by the grace of God, he let my wife and my interpreter through,” Wright recounted to Reuters. Afzali made it out of Afghanistan, counting herself among the lucky ones. (Read more)
Dozens of desperate Afghans who had been trying to flee the Taliban before Tuesday's deadline for the US withdrawal from Kabul made it to safety with help from an unexpected place: Instagram influencer Quentin Quarantino.
Quarantino is the alter ego of 25-year-old Tommy Marcus of New York City, previously best-known for his liberal memes and his jokes about opponents of COVID-19 vaccinations.
Along with his followers, Quarantino raised USD 7 million within days on GoFundMe to launch rescue missions into Afghanistan to evacuate as many people as possible, many of whom said they had been threatened by the Taliban. (AP)
Hundreds of Afghans protested outside a bank in Kabul on Saturday and others formed long lines at cash machines as a UN agency warned that a worsening drought could leave millions in need of humanitarian aid.
The economic crisis, which predates the Taliban takeover earlier this month, could give Western nations leverage as they urge Afghanistan’s new rulers to form a moderate, inclusive government and allow people to leave after the planned withdrawal of US forces on Aug. 31.
Afghanistan is heavily dependent on international aid, which covered around 75% of the Western-backed government’s budget. The Taliban have said they want good relations with the international community and have promised a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last governed the country, but many Afghans are deeply skeptical.
The protesters at New Kabul Bank included many civil servants demanding their salaries, which they said had not been paid for the past three to six months. They said even though banks reopened three days ago no one has been able to withdraw cash. (Read more)
eeks after Taliban took over Kabul, government offices and banks are yet to resume regular functions.
The two female sergeants who were killed in Kabul airport had volunteered for a job that in culturally conservative Afghanistan could have been carried out only by women: searching other women and children as they passed through the gates. But the two sergeants were also standout Marines in a force that is slowly changing, putting more women in combat roles and positions of leadership.
For most of military history, women were not allowed in combat. The few admitted to the Marines largely did clerical work. In 2001, at the start of the war in Afghanistan, women Marines were not allowed to be assigned to gate duty, said Kate Germano, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel. (Read more)
The sweeping international effort to evacuate thousands of vulnerable Afghans and foreign nationals from Kabul’s airport neared completion Saturday as the United States continued to withdraw its remaining troops from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan after carrying out a retaliatory airstrike in response to a devastating terrorist attack.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans are still thought to be trying to flee the country, yet Biden and other global leaders have acknowledged that many will not get out before the deadline. (Read more)
Taliban forces sealed off Kabul’s airport on Saturday to most Afghans hoping for evacuation, as the US and its allies were ending a chaotic airlift that will end their troops’ two decades in Afghanistan.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed on Saturday that the group’s forces were holding some positions within the airport and were ready to peacefully take control of it as American forces flew out. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby denied the claim.
The Taliban did deploy extra forces outside of the airport to prevent large crowds from gathering in the wake of Thursday’s bombing . New layers of checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles captured from Afghan security forces. Areas where the crowds had gathered over the past two weeks in the hopes of fleeing the country were largely empty. (Read more)
The United States and allies are hurrying to evacuate as many people from Afghanistan as possible before an Aug. 31 deadline amid deteriorating security.
The United States and partners have evacuated about 111,000 people since Aug. 14, the day before the Taliban entered Kabul, the White House said on Friday.
Click here for more details of the evacuation effort by country.
The Taliban said on Saturday they were preparing a new cabinet as the U.S. evacuation nears its end and they expected that sharp currency falls and economic turmoil following their takeover of Kabul two weeks ago would subside.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the movement’s main spokesman, made the comments to Reuters. He condemned an overnight US drone strike against Islamic State militants following Thursday’s suicide attack near the airport as a “clear attack on Afghan territory”.
But he appealed to the United States and other Western nations to maintain diplomatic relations after their withdrawal, which he expected would be completed “very soon”. (Read more)
At least 169 Afghans and 13 US service members were killed in Friday's terror attack at Kabul airport. As heart-wrenching images from the site emerged, an image of a US Marine cradling a baby has recieved special attention.
Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23, was seen in a widely circulated photo cuddling an Afghan infant temporarily rescued from the crush of the crowds outside the airport gates this month. She shared the image with the caption: 'I love my job'.
Less than two weeks since the Taliban captured power in Afghanistan, the United Nations Security Council has dropped a reference to it from a paragraph in its statement that called on Afghan groups not to support terrorists “operating on the territory of any other country”.
India, which is the President of the UNSC for the month of August, signed off on the statement and issued it in its capacity as the chair for this month.
Essentially, this is the first signal by the international community that the Taliban may no longer be a global outcaste. (Read more)
Malaysia is seeking help from foreign security agencies to confirm media reports that two of its nationals have been arrested by the Taliban in Afghanistan for their alleged involvement in Islamic State, the country's top police official said on Saturday.
Inspector-General of Police Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani said authorities had no information regarding the involvement of any Malaysians in the militant group in Afghanistan.
"The Royal Malaysian Police has requested security agencies abroad to confirm the reports as well as the allegations," he said in a statement." (Reuters)
The US embassy has issued a new warning late on Saturday asking citizens to avoid airport gates.
"Because of security threats at the Kabul airport, we continue to advise US citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates.US citizens who are at the Abbey gate, East gate, North gate or the New Ministry of Interior gate now should leave immediately."
The Pentagon on Saturday said that two high profile ISIS-K targets were killed and one was wounded in Friday's drone strike. The retaliatory attack, by US forces came less than 48 hours after the Kabul Airport blasts which killed close to 200 people.
Those Afghans who are intending to go abroad can do so in a dignified manner and peace of mind by having legal documents like passports and visas after resumption of commercial flights in the country, Deputy director of Taliban's political office S Abas Stanikzai said Saturday.
US troops have begun their withdrawal from Kabul airport, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told media Saturday. At the briefing, US Army Major General William Taylor also said two Islamic State group members were killed and one injured in Friday’s drone strike carried out by them in Nangarhar province of eastern Afghanistan.
Acting swiftly on President Joe Biden’s promise to retaliate for the deadly suicide bombing at Kabul airport, the U.S. military said it killed two members of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate with a drone strike in the group’s eastern stronghold.
The attack Saturday local time came amid what the White House called indications that IS planned to strike again as the U.S.-led evacuation from Kabul airport moved into its final days. Biden has set Tuesday as his deadline for completing the exit. Read more
The Taliban say US forces have evacuated three gates and other parts of Kabul airport. Taliban forces are now stationed in these areas.
The last British flight evacuating civilians from Afghanistan has taken off from Kabul, bringing to an end an operation that has airlifted around 15,000 Afghan and British citizens in the last two weeks after the Taliban took control of the country's capital, reported Reuters. A defence ministry spokesperson Saturday said that the British forces are now preparing to leave and will take small numbers of Afghan citizens with them on the remaining flights this weekend.
The US has evacuated and facilitated the shifting of approximately 111,900 people from the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul since August 14, the White House has said. The US evacuated approximately 6,800 people in the time period between August 27 at 3.00 AM EDT and August 28 at 3.00 AM EDT, following the deadly suicide attack near the Kabul airport on Thursday, it said. --PTI
Returning from Afghanistan, a man from Bansdih area here thanked the Centre for his safe return and said the memories of Kabul still haunt him. Rajesh Pandey, a resident of Chitrauli locality of Janpur Mudiyari Gram Panchayat of Bansdih Kotwali area of the district, returned to India from Afghanistan on August 23 but still has fear writ large on his face. Talking to reporters, Pandey said he had given up hope of returning home alive after seeing the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. "Many times it felt like I would not be able to return home. I am with my family today due to the efforts of the government," said Pandey, who had gone to Kabul on February 22 earlier in the year to work in a factory located eight kilometres from the Kabul airport. --PTI
As the massive US-led airlift wound down ahead of its August 31 deadline, the Taliban on Saturday deployed extra forces around Kabul airport to prevent gathering of large crowds two days after a devastating suicide attack killing close to 200, news agency AP reported.
New checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, with some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles usurped from Afghan security forces. Areas which had seen large crowds of people gather over the past two weeks in their bid to flee the country following the Taliban takeover were largely empty.
The Taliban have asked those in Kabul who have vehicles, weapons, ammunition and other government goods to hand them over to the relevant authorities within a week, TOLO news reported. According to the Afghanistan media, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said violators would be dealt with legally if the goods were not returned to the relevant authorities.
A day after US President Joe Biden promised to retaliate for the twin blasts at the Kabul airport, the US military has said that it launched a drone strike in Afghanistan, killing an Islamic State "planner", PTI reported. The Islamic State's Afghanistan affiliate, dubbed Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K, had claimed the responsibility for Hamid Karzai International Airport attack in Kabul on Thursday.
British troops will end their evacuation of civilians from Afghanistan on Saturday, the armed forces chief, Gen Nick Carter, said.
“We’re reaching the end of the evacuation, which will take place during the course of today. And then it will be necessary to bring our troops out on the remaining aircraft,” he told the BBC. “We haven’t been able to bring everyone out, and that has been heart-breaking. And there have been some very challenging judgments that have had to be made on the ground. Carter said there were still some civilian evacuation flights coming from Kabul to the UK, but “very few now”. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the final stages of the evacuation were “going according to plan”.
Italy's final evacuation flight of refugees from Afghanistan has landed at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport. The Italian Air Force C-130J with 58 Afghan citizens aboard arrived Saturday morning, some 17 hours after it departed from the Kabul airport and after a planned stopover. Also aboard were Italy's consul and a NATO diplomat who had coordinated evacuations at the Kabul airport. Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Italy was prepared to work with the United Nations and with countries bordering Afghanistan on what he described as the "more difficult phase".
He said that consisted of efforts to evacuate other Afghan citizens who worked with Italy's military during its 20-year presence in Afghanistan but weren't able to get into Kabul airport in time for the evacuation flights. He didn't say how many still were eligible for evacuation to Italy. (AP)
As the Taliban swept through Afghanistan this month, a Gen Z alt-right group ran a Twitter account devoted to celebrating their progress. Tweets in Pashto juxtaposed two laughing Taliban fighters with pictures meant to represent American effeminacy. Another said, the words 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 just one example of the open admiration for the Taliban that’s developed within parts of the American right. The influential young 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 way the Taliban “took back their national religion as law, and executed dissenters.” Read More
A former British soldier who runs an animal shelter in Kabul was caught in the “chaos” after a series of blasts ripped through the Hamid Karzai International Airport on Thursday. Paul ‘Pen’ Farthing, who was trying to leave Afghanistan along with his staff and hundreds of dogs and cats, is now being assisted by the UK government to leave the country.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence confirmed in a statement on Friday: “Pen Farthing and his pets were assisted through the system at Kabul airport by the UK Armed Forces. They are currently being supported while he awaits transportation. On the direction of the Defence Secretary, clearance for their charter flight has been sponsored by the UK Government.” Read More
As the US rushes to evacuate Americans and allies from the chaos of Afghanistan, a growing number of Republicans are questioning why the US should take in Afghan citizens who worked side by side with Americans, further exacerbating divides within the party heading into next year's midterm elections.
Little more than a week ago, as the Taliban's stunning takeover of Afghanistan still was snapping into focus, former President Donald Trump issued a statement saying "civilians and others who have been good to our Country ... should be allowed to seek refuge". But in more recent days, he has turned to warning of the alleged dangers posed by those desperately trying to flee their country before an end-of-month deadline. As Republicans level blistering criticism at Biden during his first major foreign policy crisis, some are turning to the nativist, anti-immigrant rhetoric perfected by Trump during his four years in office. It's causing dismay among others in the party who think the US should look out for those who helped the Americans over the last two decades. (AP)
A controlled detonation by American forces on Thursday that was heard throughout Kabul destroyed Eagle Base, the final CIA outpost outside the Kabul Airport, U.S. officials said on Friday. Blowing up the base was intended to ensure that any equipment or information left behind would not fall into the hands of the Taliban.
Eagle Base, first started early in the war at a former brick factory, had been used throughout the conflict and grew from a small outpost to a sprawling center that was used to train the counterterrorism forces of Afghanistan’s intelligence agencies. Those forces were some of the only ones to keep fighting as the government collapsed, according to current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence-related matters.
“They were an exceptional unit,” said Mick Mulroy, a former CIA officer who served in Afghanistan. “They were one of the primary means the Afghan government has used to keep the Taliban at bay over the last twenty years. They were the last ones fighting and they took heavy casualties.” Local Afghans knew little about the base. The compound was extremely secure and designed so it would be all but impossible to penetrate. Walls reaching 10 feet high surrounded the site and a thick metal gate slid open and shut quickly to allow cars inside.
Once the cars got inside, they still had to clear three outer security checkpoints where the vehicle would be searched, and documents would be screened before being allowed inside the base. In the early years of the war, a junior CIA officer was put in charge of the Salt Pit, a detention site near Eagle Base. There the officer ordered a prisoner, Gul Rahman, stripped of his clothing and shackled to a wall. He died of hypothermia. A CIA board recommended disciplinary action but was overruled. (NYT)
Tissue holders sit atop the conference table where the congressman's aides field frantic requests from constituents desperate for help in getting friends and loved ones out of Afghanistan before it's too late. The stories have poured in by the thousands with heartbreaking pleas not to be left behind. The tissues are used for crying breaks, one of the aides explained.
"The hardest part is just the sense of helplessness," said Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. "We're seeing all of this, you know, anxiety, and we can't do enough." Across the county, the offices of members of Congress have become makeshift crisis centers, flooded with requests for help getting people onto one of the last flights leaving the Kabul airport before President Joe Biden's Tuesday deadline for the withdrawal of all US military forces out of Afghanistan. More than 109,000 people have been evacuated since the Taliban takeover August 14, in one of the largest US airlifts in history. The work could hardly be more urgent or dangerous, as Thursday's suicide bombing attack killing 13 US service member and injuring 18 demonstrated. Some 169 Afghans were also killed and scores more wounded. (PTI)
Former US President Donald Trump on Friday said that America has been put in the worst position it could possibly be put in, slamming his successor Joe Biden on his Afghan policy.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on August 15, two weeks before the US was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war. The insurgents stormed across the country, capturing all major cities in a matter of days, as Afghan security forces trained and equipped by the US and its allies melted away. Read More
Any sustainable solution in Afghanistan must include Pakistan, a senior Republican Senator has said. “We all must remember (that) Pakistan is a nuclear-armed nation, and there is a Pakistan version of the Taliban who wishes to topple the Pakistani government and military,” Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, in an apparent reference to Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. Read More
US intelligence agencies were near certain that an attack was imminent outside Kabul airport, triggering a State Department warning to American citizens to leave the area immediately.
Just over 12 hours later, a suicide bomber walked through the large crowds to a gate manned by U.S. troops and detonated explosives, killing at least 13 US service members and 79 Afghans. It was a tragic coda to America's 20-year war in Afghanistan, the largest loss of life for the US military there in a decade, on the cusp of the full withdrawal of troops by August 31 ordered by President Joe Biden. Among the most pressing questions as the US military launches its investigation: How did the bomber make it through Taliban checkpoints? Why were US troops in such a concentrated space when they knew an attack was imminent? "It was a failure somewhere," General Frank McKenzie, the head of US Central Command, told reporters hours after the attack, which was claimed by Islamic State Khorasan. (Reuters)
A few days after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, a convoy of militants drove through the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria in cars bearing the group’s white-and-black flags, honking horns and firing their guns in the air.
The celebrations by an al-Qaida affiliate in a remote corner of war-torn Syria were an expression of the triumph felt by radical Islamic groups from the Gaza Strip to Pakistan and West Africa who see America’s violence-marred exit from Afghanistan an opportunity to reassert their presence. For such groups, the chaotic US departure following the collapse of security forces it had trained for two decades is a gift, underlining their message that Washington eventually abandons its allies, and that defeating powerful armies is possible with enough patience. Read More
American forces working under heightened security and threats of another attack pressed ahead in the closing days of the US-led evacuation from Afghanistan after a devastating suicide bombing, and US officials said they had killed a member of the extremist group that the United States believes responsible for it.
A US drone strike early Saturday in eastern Afghanistan killed a member of the country's Islamic State affiliate, US Central Command said. President Joe Biden has laid responsibility for Thursday's suicide bombing on that offshoot extremist group which is an enemy both to the West and to Afghanistan's Taliban and is known for especially lethal attacks. The death toll in Thursday's suicide bombing rose to 169 Afghans, a number that could increase as authorities examine fragmented remains, and 13 US service members. US Central Command said American officials believed the militant killed in Saturday's drone strike had been involved in planning strikes against the United States in Kabul, and that there were no other known casualties. The US retaliation comes amid a steady flow of grim warnings from the White House and the Pentagon that there could be more extremist attacks targeting US forces ahead of President Joe Biden's fast-approaching deadline Tuesday to end the airlift and withdraw American personnel. (Reuters)
Nearly 111,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan since the start of evacuation operations on August 14, the Pentagon said on Friday.
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan on August 15. Their sudden victory, which comes as the US withdraws from the country following a 20-year-war, has sparked chaos at Kabul's airport, from where America and allied nations are trying to safely evacuate thousands of citizens and allies. “Total eighty-nine flights yesterday flew out of Kabul, totalling approximately 12,500 evacuees now safely out of Afghanistan in a 24-hour period,” Maj Gen Hank Taylor, tasked with the responsibility of airlifting American citizens out of Afghanistan during the Taliban crisis, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference. (PTI)
The twin bomb attacks on Thursday at Kabul airport that killed over 100 people have underlined the catastrophe that has befallen Afghanistan. ISIS-Khorasan has claimed one bombing saying it was carried out by one of its suicide bombers against “a large gathering of translators and collaborators with the American Army at Baran Camp near Kabul Airport”. Thousands of civilians were massed at Kabul airport, desperate to flee the Taliban since their takeover on August 15. For years, Afghanistan has been the happy hunting ground for extremist-terrorist groups, and the Taliban takeover was always going to bring them to the surface. Taliban-al Qaeda contacts continue, and the ISIS-K has been in a bloody contest for space with the Taliban, claiming responsibility for large terror attacks in which hundreds of civilians have died over the last three years. Read More
Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, the former Secretary, MEA, and former Ambassador, while writing about India’s options when it comes to dealing with Afghanistan, says: “Delhi cannot shun a Taliban-dominated government. It will have to fine tune its diplomacy, engage China, Russia, Turkey and the US.” Read his Opinion piece here
An unnamed Western official has told Reuters that the evacuation of civilians from Kabul airport is continuing at a “very fast pace” and that “swift passage” will be provided to “every foreigner to leave Afghanistan in the next 48 hours” — or by 30 August. (Reuters)
The suicide bomber waited until the last possible moment, US officials said.
A crowd straining to get into Hamid Karzai International Airport had converged on Abbey Gate, a main entryway manned by Marines and other service members. The troops knew that they could be targeted in an attack; just the day before, the State Department had warned of a “credible” threat at three gates at the airport, where more than 5,000 US troops had helped to evacuate more than 100,000 people in less than two weeks. Abbey Gate was on the list. Read More