The main force of the mujahideen in the war against the Soviets was the Northern Alliance, headquartered in the Pandjir Valley
...also spelt Panjshir, Panjishir, and similar. The native population — primarily poor and illiterate — number about 173,000 earlier this year, though no doubt that is quickly changing. The capitol is Bazarak...
and led by Ahmed Shah Masood, basically the Tadjiks in the country. They were allied, usually, with Abderrashid Dostum, leading the Uzbek contingent, and Ismail Khan, leading the Dari speakers. There were others, and Dostum used to have the habit of changing sides when it suited his purpose. The Paks supported them, usually, acting as a funnel for American and Saudi dollars.
The south of Afghanistan is Pashtun, who speak the Pashto language. Pashtuns make up (guesstimating, since there hasn't been a census in years) about forty percent of the population. They're the largest population in Afghanistan, but not the majority.
The Pashtuns were supported against both the Soviets and the Northern Alliance by the Pak Jamaat-e-Islami, headed by the late lamented Qazi Hussain Ahmed, and Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami, headed by Fazlur Rehman (Mullah Diesel), and the also late lamented Samiul Haq (Mullah Sandwich). Mullah Diesel got his name for the large amounts of diesel fuel that he resold at a profit, and Mullah Sandwich got his name from his habit of taking two boys to bed at once. Sami ran a madrassah that churned out little Pashtun fighters by the hundreds. Our friend Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ran his own Hizb, and he was Qazi's favorite. He got lotsa money, as did others like Yunous Kalis, the duke of Jalalabad, whom I kinda liked from my safe distance. Hekmatyar was also a double/triple agent, funneling information -- usually about Masood's forces -- to the KGB and separately to the KhaD, which was the Kabul government's secret police. After getting kicked out of Sudan, Osama bin Laden moved there to fight as well. I recall seeing at least one interview with him, probably on CNN, which did news in those days instead of whatever it does now. There were other Arab muj as well, not all of them virulent.
Now, nowhere in that list of names is Mullah Omar mentioned, nor is the word Taliban.
To make a long story short, the Soviets left in February 1988, the Northern Alliance kept fighting against the Najibullah regime, the Paks kept trying to control them through their mullahs for that "strategic depth" nonsense. The Northern Alliance eventually took Kabul. Najibullah and his brother took refuge with the UN headquarters. Barnhanuddin Rabanni (Tadjik) became president. Hekmatyar (Pashtun) became PM. Masood became defense minister. Dostum and Ismail Khan got Mazar and Herat, respectively.
Hekmatyar wanted to be in charge, which started what was known as "dog eat dog," basically Pashtuns against Northeren Alliance. Rabbani was a nice man, and Hek overlooked his guardian Masood in the background. Hekmatyar rocketed Kabul before finally being run out of town to Iran and earning himself the title "Most Evil Man in the World." Most of Afghanistan came under the control of local warlords. Rabbani and his government remained the legal govt of Afghanistan and remained such until he stepped down in 2001.
The net result was a weak and unstable government in Kabul and a lot of Pak pot stirring, courtesy of the thankfully late Hamid Gul and his ISI successors in league with Fazl, Qazi, and especially Samiul Haq. Got all that?
Sami and his kindred were still stamping out little murderous Moslems, full of Koranic maxims about killing people and how to strip an AK-47, not so much about how to function in any but the most primitive kind of society. As soon as they were out of the pretty dancing boy stage they were off to Kandahar or someplace.
Mullah Omar was a graduate of Sami's and he was a minor warlord around Kandahar. He may have fought against the Soviets. I have no idea what led to his dispute with Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of Nangarhar; I read that it was defending a maiden's honor, but that's probably Pak bull droppings. Maidens don't have any honor in Pashtunistan. Omar ran Gul Agha out of town, and the Taliban was founded in 1994. With Pak support, they took more and more territory, though they never did control quite the whole country.
Al-Qaeda assassinated Masood on September 9th, 2001, using two "journalists" from Belgium with exploding cameras. Probably twenty four hours later, not counting time zone shuffles, and the September 11th attacks were underway.
Now, why kill Masood? Perhaps if bin Laden knew, without doubt, that the U.S. was going to retaliate against Afghanistan, he wanted the most able -- and Pak-free -- commander in the country neutralized. There were a number of fumbles and bumbles that took place in that period. Rather than nuke Kabul, or land six combat divisions and shoot the place up and put it under occupation, we worked with the Northern Alliance to toss the Talibs -- they're called Taliban because they were Sami's students -- but also put together a stupid "Southern Alliance" made up of Pashtuns. The Talibs had made a show of wanting to hang Karzai, so we held a conference in Berlin, gave him a cape, and made him president.
That's how the decisions of December, 2001, led to this week's debacle. The moral of this story is: Never trust a Pak or a holy man and never put your full weight down on anything a politician tells you.
I can't attest to the absolute correctness in detail of the above. I'm an old man now. While my memory's not as bad as Joe Biden's, it's not infallible, and I've been writing off the cuff.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[6 views]
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#1
Thank you for taking the time to write this, Fred.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 9:07 Comments ||
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#5
Cleaque: You are incorrect. We funded the Muj war against the Soviets by providing the military materiel. That materiel was turned over to the Afghan rebels in Karachi port, and the USA had nothing to do but complain about its distribution which was organized by the Pak military ISI. The genesis of the ISI is found in the geopolitical aspirations of Pak strongman Zia ul Haq. The incipient Taliban organization had little effect on the Afghan rebel victory over the Soviets. However, again thanks to the ISI and its leader Hamid Gul, by 1994 its strength had grown considerably within the region's Pashtunistan. The Taliban were by then able to overcome the feckless Hekmatyar and neutralize the equally feckless warlords, and the rest is, as they say, history.
#7
Cleaque is very obtuse. I thought I made myself clear: The Sovs left in 1988. The Taliban were founded in 1994. The only major Muj commander associated with the Taliban was Jalaluddin Haqqani. The Northern Alliance Muj were never a part of it. Even Hekmatyar wasn't part of it.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021 10:50 Comments ||
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#8
It’s Herb McCoy. He can’t help being stupid, poor dear.
[NY Post] Taliban fighters shot and killed a woman for not wearing a burqa in Afghanistan Tuesday — the same day the group pledged to usher in a new inclusive era in the country that honors "women’s rights."
A photo emerged of a woman in Takhar province lying in a pool of blood, with loved ones crouched around her, after she was killed by insurgents for being in public without a head covering, according to Fox News.
The killing came amid the outfit’s version of a charm offensive, after its swift takeover of the country in the absence of US troops, who had been propping up allied military groups since shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Insurgents also vowed Tuesday not to interfere with US-led evacuation efforts of Westerners and their Afghan allies, but were instead reported to be controlling the entrances of Hamid Karzai International Airport, and attacking those who were trying to flee.
"There was kids, women, babies, old women, they could barely walk," an Afghan former State Department contractor told Fox. "They [are in a] very, very bad situation, I’m telling you. At the end, I was thinking that there was like 10,000 or more than 10,000 people, and they’re running into the airport ... The Taliban [were] beating people and the people were jumping from the fence, the concertina wire, and also the wall."
Elsewhere in Kabul, Taliban fighters were recorded shooting guns as they patrolled neighborhoods home to activists and government workers, according to the report.
Militants were looking for people who had helped the US, and had questioned the former defense contractor’s neighbors about him, according to the report.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/18/2021 8:35 Comments ||
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#2
"We respect your right to die when we shoot you."
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
08/18/2021 8:59 Comments ||
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#3
I know I sound heartless and a SOB, but now is exactly the time to harden yourself against news coming out of AFG about outrages.
Take a step back, learn a little more about the disposition of forces, disassociate from the Pakis completely. Then use a 'WMD's in Kabul!' type alarm to suddenly nuke the shit out of it. Nuke it between May and September when the circulating hot winds will carry radiation into Pakistain too.
Let China pick up the pieces.
Meanwhile put your 'top men' on explaining why. I shall bet the American people will elect you of their own volition next time. The world will walk softly around American interests for another decade, no shit.
#7
I can't help thinking that if the Afghans really wanted to be a civilized, modern democracy they could have. They certainly weren't willing to fight for it. Maybe they just don't know any better but twenty years of our best effort, such as it was, could not convince them otherwise. So now they return to Islam in one of its most barbaric manifestations.
Here is my proposed foreign policy for Afghanistan in particular and the Muslim world in general: No need to nuke them. We don't go there and they don't come here. None of them. No exceptions.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 11:41 Comments ||
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#8
Oh, and if the Chinese want it, they can have it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 11:43 Comments ||
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#9
It is not a contradiction, at least in their eyes. They promised to respect women's rights under Islamic law.
if the Afghans really wanted to be a civilized, modern democracy they could have.
I would rate that as UnPossible at this point in time and Afghanistan's development. Making a nation-state out of a collection of warring tribes and clans is a long-term project. Based on watching people try, speeding up that process does not seem to be possible.
#10
They didn't really want it is what I'm saying. So they can't have it. That's why I'm not crying about Afghan women having to wear burqas. It's just another sob story about which there is nothing I can do.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/18/2021 12:31 Comments ||
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#11
Should China prevail Let them throw money down that money hole. We have all heard this tune before.
[OneIndia] Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday shared a video of a group of Taliban ...Arabic for students... celebrating its victory in Afghanistan in his twitter account in which gun wielding men are heard speaking in Malayalam.
Taliban Lions of Islam speak Malayalam in their victory celebration video; Shashi Tharoor shares on Twitter
"It sounds as if there are at least two Malayali Taliban here one who says samsarikkette around the 8-second mark & another who understands him!", Tharoor wrote on his microblogging site after sharing the video posted on August 15.
The video showed the Taliban member weeping in joy as they reached outside Kabul, hours ahead of falling of the Afghanistan capital in their hands.
It sounds as if there are at least two Malayali Taliban here — one who says “samsarikkette” around the 8-second mark & another who understands him! https://t.co/SSdrhTLsBG
Posted by: Chris ||
08/18/2021 9:38 Comments ||
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#5
Dron, this has never happened in Pakistan. Why was a woman sexually assaulted, thrown in the air and her clothes torn apart by 400 men on Pakistan's Independence Day?
#7
^ Horrid I'm sure, us men can probably never appreciate the fear it inspires in ladies.
How do you know it hasn't happened in India too?
This sort of thing is common wherever criminality trumps discipline. The south Asian fauna is a society in particular need of discipline. Tough love so to speak.
#8
I have a better alternative: women should start committing mass suicides and start killing female infants. But this is already in practice in hellholes.
#9
#5 Because they saw a poorly made undistributed movie that was still available on YouTube because they were too busy practicing to ban "domestic extremists" and "COVID / vaccine conspiracy theory nuts" who would emerge 11 years later...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 11:11 Comments ||
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#10
You have to hand it to the Rajput women. They had more dignity than their husbands had sense. That's exactly what they did.
[DW] The insurgents have vowed to take a more moderate stance as they seize control of Afghanistan but both the UN and Germany have expressed skepticism. EU foreign ministers are holding emergency talks. DW has the latest.
This story was last updated at 01:55 UTC/GMT. EVACUEES LAND IN GERMANY
Around 130 people who had been flown from Kabul to Tashkent on Tuesday arrived in the central German city of Frankfurt on a commercial Lufthansa flight early on Wednesday morning.
Further special flights put on to bring people from Afghanistan to Germany will continue to arrive from Tashkent, Doha and other stopover countries during the next few days, the airline company said.
UN REFUGEE AGENCY TO STAY IN AFGHANISTAN
The United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, is hoping to continue working in Afghanistan, the organization's German representative Katharina Lumpp told German newspaper Die Welt.
"We want to stay in the country because the people there need help now more than ever," she said, adding that the UNHCR currently has around 200 members of staff in the country.
Lumpp explained that the vast majority of Afghan refugees over the past 40 years have sought refuge in neighboring Iran or Pakistan. But in the past few months, most displaced Afghans have been displaced within their own country. "They now urgently need support and humanitarian aid," the UN representative said.
AUSTRIA UNWILLING TO ACCEPT REFUGEES
Austria's Interior Minister Karl Nehammer, from the ruling center-right Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) told the German newspaper Die Welt that accepting Afghan refugees following the Taliban's takeover was out of the question.
"There's no reason why an Afghan should come to Austria," he said. He called instead for neighboring countries to take in refugees, saying that "illegal migration" where migrants pass through several safe countries before their final destination "must be stopped."
The conservative lawmaker said that Austria had already taken in 35,000 people from Afghanistan, "the majority of which are young men, who often prove a challenge for the integration and social system due to their low level of education."
Efficiently sums it up.
UK TO ACCEPT UP TO 20,000 REFUGEES Anyone see any women in those airport fotos? No, me neither.
The British Home Office said on Tuesday that it is planning to accept 5,000 refugees from Afghanistan this year, rising to some 20,000 in the long term. Priority will be given to those at high risk, including women and children facing threats of persecution.
"This resettlement scheme will be kept under further review for future years, with up to a total of 20,000 in the long term," the Home Office said in a statement. It follows a similar scheme that saw the UK accept refugees from Syria from 2014.
The announcement comes before British MPs take part in an extraordinary session of parliament on Wednesday after being called back from holiday. They are set to discuss the ongoing situation in Afghanistan.
The UK was one of the biggest supporters of the US invasion of the country, deploying 9,500 troops. Some 900 British troops have now returned to Kabul to help with evacuations.
TALIBAN LEADER RETURNS TO AFGHANISTAN
Top Taliban leader and co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in the city of Kandahar, the group's spiritual home in the south of Afghanistan, on Tuesday evening.
Baradar had been in Doha as part of the Taliban's peace negotiation delegation. He is the highest-ranking official of the Islamist group who is known to have returned to Afghanistan. He is expected to take a key role in any eventual Taliban government.
A video shared on Twitter showed the leader driving through Kandahar in a convoy after arrival.
THIRD GERMAN PLANE LEAVES KABUL
A third German military transport plane has left Kabul airport with 139 people on board, Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told public broadcaster ZDF.
The aircraft headed to Tashkent in Uzbekistan. From there the passengers will be taken to Germany.
Another German plane was also ready and waiting at Kabul airport, according to Maas. "At the moment the gates at the airport are closed, as soon as they're open again, we will continue the operation," he said.
A tweet from the German defense ministry confirmed that so far, more than 260 people have been flown out of the country. "And we will evacuate as long as we can," it added.
MIXED REPORTS OVER TALIBAN COMPLIANCE WITH DEPARTURES
The Taliban have agreed to allow the "safe passage" of civilians hoping to join a US-directed airlift from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser said Tuesday.
Jake Sullivan did acknowledge reports that some civilians were "being turned away or pushed back or even beaten," as they tried to reach the Kabul international airport.
Nevertheless, he said "very large numbers" were reaching the airport and the problem of others was being taken up with the Taliban, whose swift takeover of the country on Sunday plunged the US evacuation effort into chaos.
A timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and possibly other civilians has yet to be established with the Taliban.
Taliban fighters stand guard in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, August 16, 2021.
CHAOS AT KABUL AIRPORT
Taliban fighters stand guard in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021. Thousands of people thronged to the airport trying to leave the country after the Taliban seized power with stunning speed.
GERMAN GOVERNMENT CRITICIZED
Angela Merkel and the German government have received a stinging rebuke from the country's Green Party over its handling of the crisis in Afghanistan.
Germany flew around 125 people out of Kabul on Tuesday afternoon but an earlier mission had just seven people on board.
And the Greens' expert for foreign affairs, Omid Nouripour, told DW that the "huge failure" to carry out an orderly evacuation showed that the German government was not as prepared for the situation in Afghanistan as it had previously assured
The MP said the government had ignored warnings since June about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. "They did not adapt to the situation. They had a lot of time," Nouripour said.
"This is a pity that they just took seven people with them, because we know that it's a question of hours until the airport maybe could be closed by the Taliban," he said.
Amid rising concern from certain sides that the Taliban takeover would trigger a migrant influx in Europe, Nouripour dismissed German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer's remarks about expecting to receive some 300,000 to 5 million asylum applications.
"This is ridiculous," Nouripour said. "We get seven people out of Kabul in just days... and he's talking about five million people."
What an arrogant idiot.
RUSSIA HAS 'CONSTRUCTIVE' TALIBAN MEETING
The Russian ambassador to Afghanistan said he had a "constructive" and "positive" meeting with Taliban representatives in Kabul on Tuesday.
Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov told Russian state television: "The Taliban representatives said the Taliban has the friendliest approach to Russia. They confirmed guarantees of security for the embassy."
Moscow's Afghanistan envoy, Zamir Kabulov, also said the Taliban has already started guarding the outside perimeter of the Russian embassy.
The Kremlin designated the Taliban a terrorist group in 2003, but has since hosted several rounds of talks in Afghanistan, most recently in March, that involved the militant organization.
Moscow, which fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan that ended with the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, has made a diplomatic comeback as a mediator, reaching out to feuding Afghan factions, as it jockeyed for position with the United States to gain leverage in the country.
EU SEEKS TALIBAN TALKS, SUSPENDS DEVELOPMENT AID
The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday the bloc "will have to talk" to the Taliban as they "have won the war."
Nevertheless, Borrell was keen to stress this does not mean Brussels will officially recognize the Taliban as rulers of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Borrell also said the EU would suspend payments of development assistance to the conflict-ravaged country, but Brussels is weighing up whether to boost humanitarian aid.
He said there can be "no payments of development assistance until we clarify the situation" with the Taliban.
UN CASTS DOUBT ON TALIBAN STANCE
In the wake of the Taliban's first news conference since seizing control, global skepticism has emerged over the group's new-found levels of tolerance.
The United Nations said it will need to see action, before it can believe the Taliban's words.
"We will need to see what actually happens and I think we will need to see acts on the ground in terms of promises kept," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
Germany also said the Taliban will be judged "by their actions" rather than pledges.
And the US said it hoped the Taliban would follow through on its promises.
"If the Taliban says they are going to respect the rights of their citizens, we will be looking for them to uphold that statement and make good on that statement," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
Based on the new scheme of the UK, 5,000 eligible people which includes girls, women and other groups will be given priority and will be flown out in the first year while the rest will be resettled in upcoming years.
Other high-ranking officials on the other hand sort of criticized the scheme and said that the number of visa should be increased to 35,000 or 40,000.
[ToloNews] Sources in Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... said on Tuesday that a number of government offices in the province had resumed their activities without the presence of women employees.
Employees emphasized that they continue to serve the citizens.
Breshna Company in Herat resumed its work a day after the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... took control of Herat city, and now is operating as before.
"The staff are back on duty and there are no problems," said Mullah Khair Mohammad Meraj, the Taliban member heading the Herat Breshna company.
"The electricity department is open to clients and there are no problems," said Hafizullah Heydari, a resident of Herat.
Kabir Ahmad Jami, a resident of Herat, said: "The electricity department is open and the staff of this department handles the problems of the clients with good behavior."
While work has resumed in a number of government institutions in Herat, residents of the province said that women employees in government offices have not yet appeared.
Regarding the presence of women in government institutions in Herat, Mawlawi Abdul Qayum Rohani, the Taliban governor for the province, said: "We have rules on women's work. Women should not have any worries and they can continue their work based on the Sharia laws." He added: "Men and women deserve to have those rights that have been defined in Islam."
Several public service offices in Herat have not yet been opened. One is the Office of Electronic ID cards, which is currently inactive while thousands of people are waiting to get their electronic ID cards.
"Government offices should be opened soon to solve the people's problems," said Abdullah, a resident of Herat.
Mullah Mohammad Delbar, the Taliban's deputy for the Justice Department in Herat, said: "We invited all the staff of the Justice Department to continue their work in this department, all of them have come in. We will assist each other and will work together."
Taliban officials in Herat are urging all babus government employees in the province to return to their duties. According to them, there are no restrictions on the activities of babus government employees in Herat.
[TASS] At least 40 people have died since Monday in a stampede and shooting in Kabul International Airport, TOLOnews TV channel reported on Tuesday, citing a Taliban (outlawed in Russia) commander who is inside the airport.
And if a Taliban commander says so, it must be true.
According to him, the people died after "foreign troops opened fire" as well as in a stampede. He called on the population not to travel to the airport and not "listen to false rumors that it is possible to fly abroad."
Afghans who came to the airport told the TV channel that they are hoping to leave the country as they heard that several Kabul residents managed to leave without visas or passports. Moreover, many women are flocking to the airport due to instability in the country as they are scared to live under the Taliban.
TOLOnews notes that despite the Taliban’s calls to stay at home and tragic deaths of people who fell from planes’ landing gears to their deaths on Monday, crowds are still arriving at the airport in hopes to leave the country and its new regime.
On August 15, Taliban militants entered Kabul without a fight and took over the city in a matter of hours. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani stepped down to avoid bloodshed, as he put it, and fled the country. Western states are currently evacuating their citizens and embassy staffers.
#1
The Taliban seem to be doing a fair job of keeping a human tsunami from overwhelming the airport and shutting down all fixed wing operations. I see no way the few allied troops on the ground could handle a major rush on the airport.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
08/18/2021 9:06 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] The United States says that the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... have promised safe passage for thousands of civilians seeking to reach Kabul airport in order to leave Afghanistan.
"The Taliban have informed us they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment," National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan tells news hounds at the White House.
Sullivan says the US is also "talking" with the Taliban about the timetable for the removal of thousands of American citizens and Afghans fleeing the country on US military aircraft.
#1
Xi could offer a release of all hostages in exchange for the Biden administration declaring the lab escape theory a hoax and pressuring all Western social media sites to resume the aggressive suppression of such speculation.
#5
Offer the Taliban $1 million per capita to let Afghans out of their own country, that should do it just fine! Do I have to be the only one to come up with ideas like this?
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
08/18/2021 9:08 Comments ||
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#6
Yea, well, cool down - lets see how long Taliban can rule.
With #6 as well, or was, not sure yet. The theory of the rapid leave was Talis would overextend and get heady, and picked apart by rivals. However, these international negotiations and calls for, cough, gender inclusive government is legitimizing their rule.
Say after all this pandering and title giving, Dostrum launches a bold counter-attack, retakes Kabul, and the Tali army melts back into the villages. I know, but play along, how would the internationals approach that new situation?
Which is easier for the internationals, admit being wrong about kingmakers again, or air strike Dostrum's approach to the capital?
[BenarNews] The Philippines, Bangladesh, and Indonesia said Monday they were trying to evacuate their citizens from the chaos-filled capital of Afghanistan following its takeover by Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... Death Eaters.
The Afghan government collapsed over the weekend after President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, ex-president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. When Biden abandoned the country left with a helicopter, four cars, and part of the national treasury... fled the country just before the Taliban took over Kabul without resistance. Dozens of governments across the globe asked to be allowed to repatriate their nationals, with some nations shutting down their embassies.
"We are calling on the relatives of our fellow Filipinos in Afghanistan ... get in touch with the Philippines Embassy so you can be repatriated," Presidential front man Harry Roque told BenarNews.
The Philippines government said it was repatriating about 130 Filipinos from Afghanistan, with 32 already evacuated to Doha, and a group of 19 Filipinos set to leave on Monday.
Members of the Taliban have been fighting to regain power since their ouster from Kabul after a U.S.-led offensive in 2001, prompted by the worst-ever terror attacks on American soil on Sept. 11 of that year.
Between Aug. 6 and 14, just weeks after the withdrawal of U.S. and international troops from the country, all major cities fell to the Taliban in quick succession.
Roque said the Filipino government had raised its alert for Afghanistan to the highest level, 4, which mandates repatriation but refused to answer whether the government would recognize the Taliban government.
"It is up for the Department of Foreign Affairs to address," Roque said.
Bangladesh’s foreign minister, A.K. Abdul Momen, told BenarNews that the government had asked the NGO BRAC, which has worked in 10 provinces of Afghanistan for the last 19 years, to evacuate all foreign staff last month.
Imran Ahmad, minister for expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment, told BenarNews that there were no Bangladeshi migrant workers in Afghanistan.
Shameran Abed, the executive director for BRAC International, said that three Bangladeshi staff were on their way home, while six were expected to return on Aug. 22.
Bangladesh has diplomatic ties with Afghanistan, but no resident mission in the country.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Big Shirley was still trying to snatch Nunzio bald-headed. She was already halfway there... Indonesia said it would not be closing its embassy in Kabul even as news reports showed countries including Russia, China, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... , and Pakistain rushing to close theirs.
"Indonesia is closely monitoring the rapid developments taking place in Afghanistan," a foreign ministry statement said.
There are 15 Indonesians in Afghanistan, including U.N. workers and those married to Afghans, and evacuation efforts were underway to evacuate them, as well as the staff of the Indonesian Embassy in Kabul, the ministry said.
"The Indonesian Embassy in Kabul will be run by essential staff while monitoring the security situation in Afghanistan," the statement said.
"Indonesia hopes that a political settlement that is Afghan-owned, Afghan-led can be achieved ... Indonesia continues to communicate with all parties in Afghanistan, including with U.N. and foreign representatives."
Originally a group of Islamic students tired of the civil war waged by warlords in the early 1990s, the Taliban took up arms and ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 under an extremely strict interpretation of Islam. Under their rule, women were banned from going to school or working, and al-Qaeda was able to establish a foothold in the country and plan the 9/11 attacks.
Swedish staff left the embassy as their Afghan colleagues worked. Then, they refused to answer calls from the Afghan staff and even blocked their official email accounts. Left the country. https://t.co/t1JqChlOnC
How India evacuated its embassy from Afghanistan
[OneIndia] The evacuation of the Indian embassy staff from Kabul was a "difficult and complicated" exercise as the diplomats were under observation by the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... India completed the evacuation of its staff from Kabul, a day after the airport in the Afghan capital witnessed unprecedented scenes of desperate residents rushing into it while some people were even seen clinging to the side of a US military plane in an attempt to flee the country fearing the Taliban''s brutality.
India brought back over 190 people including the Indian ambassador and its staff members from its embassy in Kabul in two C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force.
While the first aircraft evacuated around 40 staffers on Monday, the second one brought back around 150 staffers including the Indian ambassador on Tuesday.
It is learnt that the people who were to return on the second aircraft on Monday could not board it due to the ground situation.
An overnight conversation between the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar may have helped in moving the Indian personnel to Kabul airport this morning.
India has brought back the Indian ambassador and all its staff members from its embassy in Kabul in two military transport aircraft in the wake of escalating tension and deteriorating security situation in the Afghan capital after its takeover by the Taliban.
Mullah Baradar, the co-founder of Taliban, lands in Kandahar, Afghanistan after 20 years via special flight from Doha, Qatar.#Kabul#Afghanistan#Taliban
Human remains found on the landing gear of a US C-17 Direct Translation via Google Translate
WASHINGTON , August 17, 2021 11:29 PM - [REGNUM] Human remains were found in a niche of the landing gear of an American transport plane taking off from Kabul airport, the US Air Force's Special Investigations Directorate reported on August 17.
The remains of a man were found after the plane landed at an airbase in Qatar.
An investigation has begun into possible deaths during the takeoff of a US Air Force C-17 transport aircraft at Kabul airport.
"The Air Force Special Investigations Directorate is studying all available data regarding the C-17 aircraft, which took off from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 15, and the deaths associated with it ," the Office said in a statement.
A huge international airlift of foreigners and Afghans who worked with them continued on Tuesday as thousands of people terrified at the prospect of Taliban ...Arabic for students... rule flocked to Kabul airport.
NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure.... Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would send additional aircraft to bolster the operation after member states met on Tuesday, adding that evacuations were "gradually resuming" following chaotic scenes on Monday after commercial flights were halted.
Major General Hank Taylor, a top military official, said the US aimed to increase its airlift to one aircraft an hour so that between 5,000 and 9,000 passengers could be carried out per day.
"We are confident we have taken the right steps to resume safe and orderly operations at the airport," he said.
The US plans to evacuate more than 30,000 people by plane from Kabul to its military bases in Kuwait and Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... Washington said Tuesday the Taliban had promised safe passage for civilians wanting to leave via the airport.
"The Taliban have informed us they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told White House news hounds.
The US was also "talking" with the Taliban about the timetable for the removal of thousands of American citizens and Afghans fleeing the country on US military aircraft, he said.
He added that President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing... has not spoken with fellow world leaders since Kabul fell.
"He has not yet spoken with any other world leaders," Sullivan said.
"Myself, Secretary (Antony) Blinken, several other senior members of the team have been engaged on a regular basis with foreign counterparts and we intend to do so in the coming days."
Some other countries, including Germany and La Belle France, have also been able to land aircraft to pick up their nationals and Afghans qualified to travel to those countries
A first French plane, with 45 Frenchies and Afghans aboard, arrived at Gay Paree Charles de Gaulle airport on Tuesday.
Sweden announced that all its diplomatic personnel had returned home.
- TALIBAN 'HINDERING' EXODUS -
Germany accused the Taliban of blocking would-be refugees from reaching Kabul airport, amid an operation to evacuate some 10,000 Afghans who have worked with the German military or NGOs. A German military plane that landed in Kabul overnight Monday managed to leave with only seven people on board.
"The Taliban have set up checkpoints everywhere in the city and have the entire area and the airport surroundings in their hands," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told news hounds.
The only people allowed through into the airport are "foreign citizens, but no local workers and no Afghan citizens" are given access, he said.
Thousands of panicked people fled to the airport in a bid to get on departing Western flights, after the Taliban seized control of Kabul.
Austria and Romania have also indicated that their nationals and the Afghans they intend to evacuate are experiencing difficulties in reaching the airport.
Madrid has sent two planes to Dubai from Zaragoza to repatriate its embassy, nationals and Afghans who worked with Spain, the defence ministry said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2021 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
The only people allowed through into the airport are "foreign citizens, but no local workers and no Afghan citizens" are given access
Just imagine the hellish scene that would ensue if the Talibs allowed anyone onto the grounds of the airport.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 ||
08/18/2021 9:13 Comments ||
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#2
And like COVID, the goalposts will move daily.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 10:58 Comments ||
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#3
So, 5-6 days given the 40,000 number. Expect to be seeing pearl clutchers about "threatened" people stuck in Afghanistan for the next two years.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 11:01 Comments ||
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AFTER DETAILED DISCUSSIONS WITH MY TEAMMATES, ALL OF US DECIDED TO JOIN OUR FORMER VICE PR & NOW PRESIDENT OF ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF 🇦🇫 @AmrullahSaleh2 IN PANJISHIR.
WE WILL DO WHATEVER HE SAYS. JOINING THE RESISTANCE.
Afghans have been deleting messages, pictures and music history from phones
After a years of a push to digitise databases in Afghanistan, activists warn these technologies could be used by the Taliban to hunt down vulnerable groups
The biometric databases - which includes facial recognition technology - makes it much more difficult for Afghans to hide
[AlAhram] Price said the department was advising personnel to search for and remove social media and website content featuring civilians
Multiple federal agencies that operated in Afghanistan and worked with Afghan citizens have been hastily purging their websites, removing articles and photos that could endanger the Afghan civilians who interacted with them and now fear retribution from the Taliban ...Arabic for students... The online scrubbing campaign appeared to begin late last week when it became clear that the Afghan cops had completely collapsed and the Taliban would take over the country far faster than even the most alarmist official predictions. The concern is that the Taliban or its supporters would search the websites and identify Afghans who had worked with the Americans or merely benefited from their services.
State Department Spokesman Ned Price said the department was advising personnel to search for and remove social media and website content featuring civilians because the safety of Afghan contacts ``is of utmost importance`` to the government.
``State Department policy is to only remove content in exceptional situations like this one. In doing so, department personnel are following records retention requirements,'' Price said.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said in a statement the agencies who operated in Afghanistan began clearing the websites last Friday _ one day after the decision was made to send U.S. military to secure the Kabul airport as the capital collapsed.
``Given the security situation in Afghanistan, and out of an abundance of caution for the safety of our staff, partners, and beneficiaries, we are reviewing USAID public websites and social media to archive content that could pose a risk to certain individuals and groups,`` the agency said in an email to The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
An official with the Agriculture Department said a similar scrubbing effort was underway there. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not cleared to speak on the issue.
An News Agency that Dare Not be Named review of the USDA website revealed at least seven different links to Afghanistan-related blurbs or blog posts that, when clicked on, defaulted to a page declaring ``Access denied: You are not authorized to access this page.''
While much attention has focused on protecting Afghan interpreters and others who worked with the U.S. military, soldiers were only a portion of the U.S. personnel who operated in Afghanistan over the last two decades.
Organizations, including USAID, elements of the Agriculture Department and others, began arriving in Afghanistan as early as 2002, within months of the toppling of the previous Taliban government, focused on developing the country's infrastructure, educational and agriculture sectors.
As recently as June, USAID announced the U.S. was providing more than $266 million in additional humanitarian assistance to help Afghans. Total humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan totaled more than $543 million since fiscal year 2020, according to the USAID press announcement.
The money brought the total U.S. humanitarian assistance to nearly $3.9 billion since 2002, the release said.
In some of the now-disabled Agriculture Department posts viewed by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, several, but not all, contained details that would clearly be viewed by the Taliban as proof of collaboration, such as names and photos of Afghan agricultural specialists and governmental officials who visited the U.S. on multiple USDA-sponsored delegations or fellowships.
Others were more innocuous, such as an article about Minnesota farmers donating more than 2,500 bushels of soybean seeds to their Afghan counterparts. The fact that they have also been scrubbed from the site possibly indicates the level of caution being used _or simply that whole sections of Afghan-related material were hastily deleted in large batches.
One scrubbed article makes it clear that even while the American military was deployed across the country, Afghan civilians and government officials were in danger of retaliation for the most low-level associations with the U.S. government.
It recounts in detail the USDA's working relationship with the members of an regional agricultural authority in a province near Kabul. USDA helped coordinate a shura (townhall meeting) between the council members and local farmers. The article, which includes a photo of the meeting, notes more than 250 farmers showed up despite bully boy threats of ``violence against any farmer or government official planning to attend the meeting or work with USDA.''
The author praises the government officials ``who risk their safety each day to bring progress and opportunity to their fellow Afghans.''
#2
I'm sure Fakebook and Twister will support any unofficial government requests as soon as the new government will classify those accounts belong to 'insurrectionists'.
[Legal Insurrection via Rantingly] "Bagram prison contained the 5,000 "highest value" Taliban, al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters captured on the battlefield."
As Taliban forces swept through Afghanistan, thousands of high-level Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State terrorists have been set free.
Around 5,000 top terrorists fled when Afghan government forces surrendered Bagram Air Base, 40 miles from Kabul. The prison at the base housed some of the world’s most notorious jihadis besides the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center.
"Afghan forces at Bagram Air Base, home to a prison housing 5,000 inmates, surrendered to the Taliban, according to Bagram district chief Darwaish Raufi," The Associated Press reported on Monday. "The prison at the former U.S. base held both Taliban and Islamic State group fighters."
The Times of London reported the release of high-profile terrorists:
Thousands of Afghanistan’s most dangerous terrorism captives have been set free after the Taliban seized control of the former American base at Bagram and the prison known as Afghanistan’s Guantanamo Bay.
Bagram prison contained the 5,000 "highest value" Taliban, al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters captured on the battlefield. A Taliban spokesman said they were "being evacuated to a safe place".
The freeing of these high-level terror operatives will have sweeping consequences on the raging worldwide jihad. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the slain ISIS chief was a Camp Bucca inmate, a U.S. detention center in Iraq. Camp Bucca was nicknamed the ’Jihadist university,’ where the future ISIS leadership came from. "Camp Bucca became what has been described as a ’university’ for the future leaders of IS, with inmates becoming radicalised and developing important contacts and networks," the BBC noted.
Former inmates from Guantanamo Bay make up the current Taliban leadership, including the mujahedeen commander who took the presidential palace in Kabul. "The Al-Jazeera news channel livestreamed the press conference from inside the palace, which showed a group of Taliban fighters sitting at the President’s desk before a fighter claimed he was a former inmate of the US-controlled Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba," UK’s Daily Mail reported.
The next large scale Islamic Terrorist Attack on the US and/or the Free World now rests squarely on the 2021 Coup's administrations shoulders. Due to its piss poor execution and handling of the withdrawal plan.
Some might remember back in 2016-2020,when we had a clear minded and strong president, his scale down process was not seeing ANY of this crap.
The Irony of the 2021 Coup's major F*up is only multiplied given their figurehead "Biden" once suggested the same screwed up course of action for South Vietnam back 1975.
[Garowe] A top official in Somalia insists the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Mission Forces [AMISOM] killed civilians last week, arguing that the incident happened after the troops had been ambushed by al-Shabaab ...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... Death Eaters in the southern part of the country.
Abdulkadir Mohammed Nur, the governor of the restless Lower Shabelle region, said he made a confirmation after arranging a meeting with local residents, adding that five farmers were among the civilians who were killed during the fiasco.
Two other civilians whose vehicle broke down on the side of the road were also killed by the peacekeepers, he said. Nur said he personally knew one of the farmers, who died instantly after the assault by the AU forces.
According to reports, the killings took place at Golweyn town, about 100 kilometers south of Mogadishu on August 10. The Uganda People's Defense Forces [UPDF] was manning the place at the time of the incident.
Already, the Somali and AU officials confirmed al-Shabaab Death Eaters had ambushed the peacekeepers during a routine patrol near Golweyn. The soldiers engaged the Death Eaters in a heavy firefight lasting several hours before the incident of civilians deaths was reported.
The African Union insisted that those killed were Death Eaters who took part in the ambush, a claim which has been disputed by a number of eyewitnesses. The troops are accused of frogmarching the innocent civilians, shooting them afterward.
According to Governor Nur, one AU soldier was killed; two others were maimed. It is not yet clear if the killing of the civilians occurred during or after the ambush. AU officials said they are investigating the incident.
In a tweet on the day of the attack, the African Union said that Ugandan troops on routine patrol "engaged and dislodged" an al-Shabaab ambush.
"During the counterattack, 7 bad boyz were potted while others sustained injuries and an assortment of weapons was recovered," AMISOM said in a tweet. In the tweet, AMISOM said one of its soldiers sustained injuries. The tweet has since been deleted.
In a statement, AMISOM seemed to maintain that those killed had links to al-Shabaab krazed killers, but vowed to ensure proper investigations are done. After investigations, the mission said, the report will be published for action.
"On August 10, 2021, soldiers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) while on a routine patrol to secure the Main Supply Route along with the Beldamin-Golweyn Forward Operating Base in the Lower Shabelle region, were ambushed and attacked by al-Shabaab krazed killers," the AU said in a statement on August 11.
The AMISOM team also said troops seized firearms, rounds of ammunition, and mobile phones during the shootout against al-Shabaab.
"AMISOM has since received reports that civilian lives were lost," the statement further read. "To this end, AMISOM has launched a thorough investigation into the reported incident. The investigation team will present its findings and this will be followed by a Board of Inquiry."
Gunmen killed a police officer and six employees of #Nigerian oil and gas services company Lee Engineering during an attack on a project site in the southeastern state of #Imo, police said on Tuesday.https://t.co/KxsmUPLDsr
Attacks on oil and gas facilities have long been a problem in Nigeria, where the multi-billion dollar industry sits alongside impoverished communities that have seen little benefit from it. In this case, the motive was unclear.
Lee Engineering could not immediately be reached for comment.
The attack took place on Monday at a location called Assa, according to Abattam.
The Lee Engineering website says the company has a project there involving the installation and construction of a gas primary treatment facility and the supply of gas turbine generators and a waste heat recovery system.
[AlAhram] Thirty-seven non-combatants were killed in a western Niger region that has been battered by jihadist incursions from neighbouring Mali, local sources said Tuesday.
"Armed men who arrived on cycle of violences" attacked the village of Darey-Daye in the Tillaberi region on Monday afternoon as people were working in the fields, a local official said, adding: "The toll is very high -- there were 37 dead, including four women and 13 children."
Unidentified shooters opened fire on Monday in the commune of Banibangou, in the Tillaberi region near Niger's border with Mali.
HRW: ISLAMISTS 'WAGING WAR' ON CIVILIANS
According to a report issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) last week, at least 420 non-combatants were killed in jihadi attacks in Tillaberi and the neighboring region of Tahoua this year.
"Armed Islamist groups appear to be waging war on the civilian population in western Niger," Corinne Dufka, the Sahel director for the international rights group, said in the report.
HRW said people with disabilities and "numerous children" were killed, including some who were executed after being ripped from their parents' arms.
Extremist bully boy attacks have also destroyed schools and churches, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Militants operating in the so-called triborder region, between Niger, Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other... and Mali are mostly affiliated with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
Similar attacks have repeatedly occurred in the region despite security efforts by authorities. Shooters on cycle of violences flee across the border into Mali after their raids.
[EN.ALGHADEERTV.NET] The Saudi-led military coalition has upped the ante in war-ravaged Yemen, with its fighter jets launching fresh raids in north-western Sa’ada Province.
Yemeni media reports said the latest military aggression targeted al-Dhaher district, southwest of the provincial capital Sana’a, on Tuesday, resulting in serious damage to civilian properties.
It comes in the wake of repeated ceasefire violations by Saudi-led foreign mercenaries in strategic al-Hudaydah Province, which borders Red Sea.
According to Yemen News Agency (SABA), quoting a military official, the foreign mercenaries on Monday carried out around 190 violations of the ceasefire in the province.
The report said the Saudi jets conducted raids on the areas of al-Jabaliyah, al-Fazah and al-Tahita, firing 92 shells and 137 bullets.
Masirah, in its report, also confirmed the relentless military raids in Hudaydah Province.
It said the Saudi-led coalition forces have not only been targeting the strategic province with large-scale airstrikes but also conducting raids with spy planes.
In addition to Sa’da and al-Hudaydah, Saudi-backed mercenaries continue their destabilizing activities in other provinces like Ma’rib, about 120 kilometers east of Sana’a.
Over the past few months, the strategic province has been the scene of large-scale operations by Yemeni armed forces, strongly pushing back Saudi-backed mercenaries.
Pertinently, since the establishment of Al-Hudaydah ceasefire within the framework of the Stockholm Agreement in 2018, Saudi Arabia has failed to adhere to it.
Despite widespread protests in Yemen over Riyadh’s non-compliance with the ceasefire agreement, the United Nations has so far taken no action to stop the Saudi-led aggression.
On August 8, thousands of Yemenis marched through the streets of Sana’a to protest Saudi blockade, supported by the West, and the economic hardships resulting from it.
What did any of these Americans think, anyway? The State Department has a long history of treating Americans abroad like trash. They are regarded as either fugitives from justice or tax evaders. They did the same thing during the Wuhan virus crisis. Other countries sent planes to bring their nationals home, free of charge. State washed their hands of American citizens and abandoned them. $1 trillion for war, not one cent for the little people.
#3
I'm going to get hammered for "blaming the victims." So be it. The ones trapped there who went to make their fortunes by siphoning USAID and other "development" money, the conflict tourists, the ones trying to bust into the drug trade, let them find their own ways out.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:30 Comments ||
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#4
Jo(k)e always was competitive, I guess he's determined to show that Jimmy Carter a thing or two when it comes to hostages.
#8
No, G, world policeman is a hubris we cooked up here in America for ourselves. Then the neocons and Soros types figured out how to co-opt it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:43 Comments ||
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#9
What actual conservitives in the US need to do is discredit the "R2P" nonsense with the same verve we put into stomping CRT. Ask R2P zealots this: "Where is the rest of the world's R2P Americans from their exported drugs, exported criminals, exported illiterate welfare leeches, exported bad politics and exported "quaint cultural customs?"
Silence...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:47 Comments ||
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#10
How much effort did those mini skirted girls in Kabul in the 70s from the picture yesterday put into protecting their own futures to be free individuals? Apparently not nearly enough...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 8:50 Comments ||
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#11
What actual conservitives in the US need to do is discredit the "R2P" nonsense with the same verve we put into stomping CRT
Definition of verve
1a: the spirit and enthusiasm animating artistic composition or performance : VIVACITY
b: ENERGY, VITALITY
😒
#18
I refer back to my comment #3. I don't have any problem believing there are lots of people with US passports (as opposed to Americans in the sense of people who believe in America nad the American idea) in Afghanistan. Think of fat, black flies buzzing over a fresh turd...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 11:53 Comments ||
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#19
Maybe these are wannabe American citizens, Afghans pegged to be ever grateful blue voters still negotiating the buy in. At this point, who knows?
Afghanistan was stable and we had enough troops there to monitor what was going on. Almost all of the fighting was being handled by the Afghan military.
US casualties for the last five years had fallen dramatically as a result. In 2020 we lost 9, in 2019 we lost 22, in 2018 we lost 15, in 2017 we lost 17 and in 2016 we lost 14. Many of these losses were not the result of combat but admittedly tragic just the same. However, the loss of 77 Americans over 5 years pales in comparison to the over 3000 we lost in a single day to allegedly the same damn terrorists we just turned the country back over to.
The idea to pull out completely whether it was Trump's plan or Biden's execution has turned out to be a catastrophe that, I believe, will haunt us for decades and maybe longer. As a result of Biden's lack of planning and execution and probable self-fulfilling need to be out of Afghanistan by September 11th, people will die in mass. Some will be Americans. Some will be tortured and executed in the streets because that is the Taliban way. For the remainder of my life, every execution I see on TV, every terrorist act, every rape, enslavement or forced marriage coming out of Afghanistan will be at the hands of Joe Biden. And remember, what you see through the media will be a small fraction of the atrocities committed. Joe now has blood on his hands and, as I see it, that will be his lasting legacy, Tonight I pray for the Afghan people. My heart goes out to them especially their women and young ladies and girls. Their promising future, their whole world has been torn apart by the self-serving decisions of none other than the President of the United States, Joe Biden. I say again "NICE JOB JOE".
#21
I can easily believe there are a lot of idiots in the aforementioned categories, but 40K makes me skeptical. Unless there was some really crazy stuff going on that we don't know about...
#22
More magic numbers, which, if you don't accept without question, you are a QANON domestic terrorist and must be liquidated.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/18/2021 13:49 Comments ||
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#23
That number makes absolutely no sense. Seeing how people actually shat themselves when Green Beans showed up at Bagram, I searched fast food Kabul Afghanistan, and I don't see that result mash.
Latest spinball: we should be putting aside our disagreements and anxieties and rallying around the flag like the second plane just hit.
Me: you did it backwards. Things come at you from behind when you go backwards. Your pronouns are dum/fuks.
#24
And these are people who saw Bagram abandoned like a two legged puppy and were like, "It'll be fine."
I'm not wishing them harm, and I"m sure they are just as stoked about all the people high-fiving the 650 Afghans hitching a US Military plane ride rather than them, especially after You Got Mail: you're on your own. Embassy App. How red of a flag do you need?
And if it were a serious military effort, why didn't we bomb all that abandoned equipment before it became mounted and used in an attack. Wouldn't that be an easier kill? So what was bombed during 'Big Day of Air Strikes!'?
There’s nothing about this in One India thus far....
[AlAhram] Hundreds of Moslems chanting religious and pro-freedom slogans erupted into the streets in the main city of Srinagar despite security restrictions banning the traditional procession
Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... fired tear gas and warning shots Tuesday to disperse Shiite Moslems who attempted to participate in processions marking the Moslem month of Muharram. Dozens of people were detained.
Government forces used batons to beat journalists covering the procession, according to a local news hound. Authorities erected steel barricades and barbed wire to block the crowds.
'We respect the religious sentiments and practices of all, but at the same time, it is also our joint responsibility to defeat the ill designs of vested interests who try to disturb the peaceful atmosphere,'' police Inspector-General Vijay Kumar said on Twitter.
Muharram is among the holiest months for Shiite Moslems across the world and includes large processions of people beating their chests while reciting elegies to mourn the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson. The mourning reaches its peak on Ashura, the 10th day of the month in the Islamic lunar calendar. Tuesday's procession marked the eighth day on the calendar.
The traditional religious procession turned violent mostly peaceful last year as Indian forces fired shotgun pellets to disperse crowds, injuring dozens.
Some main Muharram processions have been banned in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir since an armed insurgency broke out in 1989 demanding the region's independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistain. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Kashmiri Moslems have long complained that the government is curbing their religious freedom on the pretext of maintaining law and order while promoting an annual Hindu pilgrimage to the Himalayan Amarnath Shrine in Kashmir that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. The pilgrimage has been canceled for the last two years because of the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... .
[OneIndia] Two women were taken into custody on Tuesday by the sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) here for allegedly propagating ideology of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... terror group through social media, police said.
NIA arrests two Kannur women for alleged ISIS links
Confirming the development, a police brass hat told PTI that the women were held from their residences in Thana, a commercial suburb in the Kannur city. He, however, did not divulge more details of NIA's action.
Reports from Kannur said the NIA had earlier carried out raids at their residences following the arrest of another member of their group from Kannur in March this year.
The group in which they were active members allegedly propagated IS ideology through a social media platform called Chronicle Foundation, reports said.
#BREAKING | Three members of the #Iraqi army were killed, another wounded in a critical condition in a terrorist attack with a sniper that targeted a security point in Muqdadiya district, northeast of $Diyala Governorate. pic.twitter.com/mFPVkLR0te
In coordination with the Peshmerga forces, Iraqi security forces raided an ISIS headquarters in mount Qara Dagh in Nineveh.According to a blurb of the Security Media Cell (SMC), the intelligence of Division 14 of the Iraqi army detected a movement of a group of ISIS Death Eaters from and to a den on mount Qarah Dagh in Nineveh.
"In coordination with the Iraqi Kurdistan Guards-Peshmerga, a land force of the 50th brigade’s first regiment raided the den and seized ten bombs and material. The den, with its contents, inside were detonated by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal."
[EN.ALGHADEERTV.NET] The Paleostinian resistance movement Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®, has called for a general strike in the wake of the shooting martyred of four young Paleostinians by Israeli forces in a dawn raid in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
“Let’s you and him fight!”
The four young men, identified as Saleh al-Ammar, Raed Abu Seif,
.... both al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades...
Amjad Husniyah,
...plain vanilla Hamas...
and Nour Jarrar,
...Islamic Jihad’s military wing, the al-Quds Brigades...
were shot at the Jenin refugee camp on Monday, multiple sources, including Akram Rajoub, the governor of Jenin, said.
The noble Lions of Islam got themselves killed while trying to prevent the arrest of another of their ilk.
The governor was cited as saying that the bodies of two of the victims — Husniyah and Jarrar — were seized by Israeli regime authorities before withdrawing from Jenin.
The raid on the city of Jenin and its refugee camp led to heavy festivities between the Israeli troops and Paleostinian resistance fighters and local youths. Loud explosions and gunfire were heard, too.
"We mourn the deaders of Jenin who died at dawn today after a heroic confrontation with the Israeli occupation forces who stormed the camp," Hamas front man Hazem Qasem said in a blurb later on Monday, before calling for a general strike across the occupied territories.
"This pure blood of the Jenin deaders is the true guarantee for the liberation battle to continue until the occupation leaves our entire Paleostinian land," the Paleostinian Information Center quoted him as saying.
The national and Islamic political forces in Jenin also declared a day of anger against the Israeli regime and a general strike in the city in mourning for the young Paleostinians, the report added.
The groups also called on the residents of Jenin to take part in the funeral procession of deaders Saleh Ammar and Ra’ed Abu Saif.
The Paleostinian resistance movement Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , for its part, also expressed condolences to the families of the victims and stressed that the killings were a clear sign of insistence by "revolutionaries of Jenin" and the whole West Bank on resistance against the occupying regime.
The Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... -based movement also held the Zionist enemy fully responsible for the growing crimes against the Paleostinians and their holy sites.
Says regnum.ru:
Direct translation via Google Translate
It is noted that all missiles and shells fired by Israeli artillery exploded near the settlement of Khodr. The target of the shelling, presumably, was the positions of pro-Iranian Shiite formations fighting on the side of the Syrian army. Possible deaths, injuries and damage were not reported.
"The Israeli adversary launched a new aggressive action against Syria and launched a missile attack on the northern part of the province of Al-Quneitra," according to agency SANA, Syrian state news agency.
Syrian media reported on Tuesday evening of an Israeli missile strike on an area in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
The state-run SANA news agency reported that "initial information indicates an Israeli missile attack west of the town of Hader
...an alternate spelling of Khodr, above ...
in the northern Quneitra countryside," adding that two missiles were fired in the strike.
Footage taken from the Israeli side of the fence shows an object flying through the air before it went kaboom!Another independent pro-opposition Syrian source in the Golan Heights claimed two separate sites were hit: one belonging to the Hezbollah terror group, and the other being the office of the Syrian First Division’s 90th Brigade commander Brig. Gen. Hussein Hamoush.
Hamoush has been previously named by the Israel Defense Forces, in leaflets dropped in the area, as cooperating with Hezbollah, with Syrian troops warned not to corporate with the Iran-backed militias in the area.
[Rudaw] At least one civilian was killed in Ottoman Turkish bombardment in northeast Syrian (Rojava) on Tuesday evening, according to a local media outlet and a conflict monitor.
The Ottoman Turkish army bombarded Zarkan district in Hasaka province.
One child was killed and five other civilians were maimed in the bombardment, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Hawar News Agency (ANHA), a media outlet affiliated with the Rojava administration, reported that a four-year-old child and a woman were killed and more than 10 people were maimed.
The casualties were brought to Dirbesiye hospital, ANHA reported.
In October 2019, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... launched an offensive against Kurdish forces in northeast Syria. Ceasefires were brokered by Moscow and Washington, but the truces are frequently violated. Earlier this month, a father and his three children were killed in a Ottoman Turkish bombing near Ain Issa.
Direct translation via Google Translate. Edited. [REGNUM] The Syrian soldier died as a result of shelling from the positions of illegal armed groups controlled by Turkey, Deputy Head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria Rear Admiral Vadim Kulit said at a briefing on August 17 .
The positions of the Syrian army in the Aleppo province were subjected to artillery fire.
According to the Russian military, the fire came from the area of the settlement of Khizvan.
“Also, positions of government forces in the area of Ain Dakna were subjected to artillery fire from militants from the area of the Jibrin settlement, as a result of which one member of the armed forces of the SAR was killed ,” said Vadim Kulit.
In addition, three Syrian military personnel were injured as a result of shelling by terrorists in the province of Hama.
“As a result of mortar attacks by terrorists at positions of government forces in the area of the settlement of Tell-Methazi in the province of Hama, three servicemen of the armed forces of the SAR were injured ,” the deputy head of the Russian Center said.
12 armed & masked Syrian soldiers approach #Israel border overnight, train near IDF outpost in area without border fence, @arutz20 reports (via @RotterNet); army closely monitors maneuvers in high-risk zone for fear of future infiltration or terror attack.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Why don't you come up and see me sometime - (I may have lifted the line, but she looks like she means it.) 
[NY Post] Taliban fighters shot and killed a woman for not wearing a burqa in Afghanistan Tuesday — the same day the group pledged to usher in a new inclusive era in the country that honors "women’s rights."
...Arabic for 
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...46th president of the U.S. 
...Arabic for 
...... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
.jpg "Kashmir")
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
