Further chaos in Afghanistan

August 21, 2021 admin Comments 0 Comment

The latest from the lamestream media

Biden pledges to evacuate Afghans who helped US

I bet most Americans are concerned with whether Americans are extricated, not whether there is going to be another migrant wave

$2,000 Flight Evacuation Fee For Americans Escaping Kabul Triggers Outrage

The Biden State Department has scrapped an initial plan to bill US citizens desperately seeking to fly out of Kabul $2,000 or more for their evacuation flight home. This is an estimated up to 10,000 or more Americans are still trapped in Kabul, many seeking to make their way to the airport under cover while avoiding Taliban checkpoints.

Harrowing scenes showed Americans in some cases literally standing on the other side of barbed wire barriers screaming for US soldiers guarding airport entrances to help them inside. Word of the $2,000 price tag for the flight home first emerged on social media on Thursday and was later confirmed by the State Department as ‘normative’ practice, as indicated on its official .gov website.

“U.S. law requires that evacuation assistance to private U.S. citizens or third country nationals be provided ‘on a reimbursable basis to the maximum extent practicable,‘” a State Dept. spokesman was cited in Politico as saying.

Following widespread outrage over the hefty fee, which presumably the US government would have collected later after it flew Americans out of harm’s way, State Department spokesman Ned Price announced the US plans to drop the fee in this case.

“In these unique circumstances, we have no intention of seeking any reimbursement from those fleeing Afghanistan,” Price was widely cited as saying.

According to The Hill, “The law requires that Americans or other foreign nationals agree to pay back the cost of an evacuation, which is typically comparable to the cost of a full fare economy flight, or comparable transportation to the designated destination.”

But it’s now pretty much universally agreed upon that the evacuation was botched from the beginning, given the administration delayed and waited despite repeat warnings from military and intelligence officials that the process be started much, much earlier.

“Get Us!” Surreal Footage Shows Trapped Americans Pleading To Be Let Inside Kabul Airport

During a Wednesday afternoon press conference Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made a stunning admission on the situation in Kabul which immediately came under fire from the press pool: “We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people.”

While he was responding to the avalanche of criticism aimed at the White House and Pentagon for essentially abandoning to the Taliban the tens of thousands of local Afghan translators and staffers who spent years helping US and NATO forces, the further alarming reality remains that thousands of Americans are still trapped in and around Kabul international airport. A CBS News foreign correspondent posted the below video showing the still chaotic situation as Americans are trying to access the airport under extremely dangerous circumstances, through barbed wire and blockaded military checkpoints. “Get us!” one woman is heard screaming and pleading with the American troops standing on the other side of the blockaded North Gate entrance to the airport.

After Monday’s events which saw thousands of desperate Afghanis flood the airport runways, making it nearly impossible for aircraft to take off, also resulting in multiple deaths, US troops have closed off and barricaded whole sections of the airport.

At the same time the unbelievable overnight (local time) scenes of desperation unfolded, over at the Pentagon briefing Secretary Austin said further, “All of this is very personal for me. This is a war that I fought in and led. We have a moral obligation to help those who helped us and I feel the urgency deeply.”

Yet the crisis continues to spiral…

Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman also issued remarks, specifically addressing reports that currently Taliban militants are blocking all outside access to the Kabul airport:

“[We] are engaging directly with the Taliban to make clear we expect them to allow all American citizens all 3rd-country nationals who wish to leave to do so safely & without harassment.”

This is apparently creating a “trapped” no-man’s land situation where throngs of people are stuck between the Taliban and internal US military perimeter, making it impossible to go anywhere.

Many are also still in Kabul itself, The Washington Post is reporting, “Thousands of U.S. citizens are trapped in Kabul with no ability to get to the airport. As Taliban soldiers go door to door, searching for Westerners, these U.S. citizens are now reaching out to Washington for help.

“Help! The Taliban is coming!” – a young Afghan woman is heard tearfully pleading with US soldiers in another harrowing clip which emerged Wednesday…

Meanwhile…

* * *

More from Wednesday’s press briefing and the Pentagon’s “safe passage” agreement with the Taliban, which appears tenuous at best…

Kabul Evacuation Flights “Paused” For Hours As Military Scrambles To Find Reception Facilities

As of Friday evening local time evacuation flights out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul have been “paused” according to CNN correspondents.

According to White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, “No flights have left the Kabul airport in the last eight hours,” per a CNN reporter who is on the ground at the airport. Reportedly evacuation stop-off points and facilities at US bases in the Gulf – where the bulk of the some over 10,000 of those Americans and Afghans already flown out have landed – are reaching capacity.

Graphic: Taliban Execute Police Chief, Intensify Hunt For Afghans Who Worked With Americans

Despite promises not to seek retribution against their ideological enemies following their takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban is doing just that.

On Thursday, horrifying video of the Taliban executing an Afghan police chief emerged. Haji Mullah Achakzai, a former Afghan Armed Forces member who became police chief of the Badghis province near Herat, was captured by the Taliban and executed for fighting alongside the Afghan army.

The execution video, posted to Twitter by a friend of Mr Achakzai on Thursday, showed the police chief kneeling in the sand with his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied in front of him.

He is surrounded by Taliban soldiers who then shoot him several times and leave his body lying in the sand.

The video was shared through a Taliban-related network and obtained by Afghan security adviser Nasser Waziri. –News.com.au

Graphic warning:

Meanwhile, the Taliban has intensified its search for people who worked with US and Nato forces, according to a confidential UN document cited by the Times of India.

The report — provided by the UN’s threat-assessment consultants — says the group has “priority lists” of individuals it wants to arrest.

Most at risk are people who had central roles in the Afghan military, police and intelligence units, according to the document.

The Taliban have been conducting “targeted door-to-door visits” of individuals they want to apprehend and their family members, the report says.

It adds that militants are also screening individuals on the way to Kabul airport and have set up checkpoints in major cities, including the capital and Jalalabad.

“They are targeting the families of those who refuse to give themselves up, and prosecuting and punishing their families ‘according to Sharia law,” said Christian Nellmann, executive director of the Norwegian Center for Global Analysis, which created the UN document.

“We expect both individuals previously working with Nato/US forces and their allies, alongside with their family members to be exposed to torture and executions. This will further jeopardize western intelligence services, their networks, methods and ability to counter both the Taliban, ISIS and other terrorist threats ahead.”

According to the report, the Taliban is “rapidly recruiting” new informants to collaborate with them, and have expanded their list of targets to mosques and money brokers.

It reprints a letter, dated August 16, from the Taliban to an individual who worked in counter-terrorism in the Afghan government.

The letter asks the person to report to Taliban officials to “provide information about the nature of your work and relationship with the British and Americans.”

“If you do not report to the commission, your family members will be arrested instead, and you are responsible for this. You and your family members will be treated based on Sharia law,” it says.

The Norwegian Center for Global Analyses also warned the Taliban may target or arrest remaining Westerners or other foreign personnel, including medical workers, if they criticize the militants. –Times of India

On Tuesday, the Times of India reported that thousands of Afghans are scrambling to delete their digital footprints, and worry that biometric databases can and will be used to track and target them.

“We understand that the Taliban is now likely to have access to various biometric databases and equipment in Afghanistan,” said Human Rights First in a Monday Twitter statement. “This technology is likely to include access to a database with fingerprints and iris scans, and include facial recognition technology.”

ARMED TO THE TEETH

Taliban mocks West with ISIS-style propaganda video showing fanatics tooled-up in ‘stolen US military gear’

TALIBAN propaganda channels are showing brazen fanatics tooled up in the streets of Kabul in what appears to be stolen US-made military gear.

The ISIS-style video shows troops armed to the teeth with modern military equipment — rather than the militants’ signature AK-47 slung over the shoulder.

The newly equipped Taliban squad have gear that looks suspiciously like the kit the US gave to the Afghan special forces

Sophisticated tactical radio can be seen on the troops' back

Military Tear Gasses Crowd At Kabul Airport As US Struggles To Ramp Up Evacuation Effort

While the State Department has warned the thousands of Americans still in Afghanistan that they are on their own when it comes to finding safe passage to the Kabul airport, which remained mobbed on Thursday, as it has been for the prior five days as thousands of Afghans and foreigners attempt to flee as the Taliban retake control of the country, WSJ.

Even after the US sent thousands of soldiers to secure the airport while evacuations continue, many Afghan passengers, including those with SIVs (Special Immigrant Visas) are still finding it next-to impossible to get out.

The US has tried to accelerate what has been an insanely chaotic evacuation process by rushing thousands of troops and diplomats to the Kabul airport, the last place in Afghanistan under Nato control. Americans are in constant contact with their Taliban counterparts (whom they just finished battling for 20 years) to ensure evacuees can reach the airport. But even this isn’t enough. As the NYT put it, “the reassurances from Washington belie the fear and futility on the ground.”

While the violence and gunshots have temporarily subsided, WSJ reports that military personnel fired tear gas into the crowds of Afghans trying to enter the airport on Friday, despite the Pentagon’s promise to “restore order” at the airport. The three entry gates to the airport remain blocked.

Videos have shown women, children – even babies – being hoisted over the airport’s blast walls and tangles of razor wire to US soldiers on the other side. One particularly striking image of a baby being passed over the wall is making the rounds on social media.

Meanwhile, at least two US officials have described growing impatience within the Biden Administration over the State Department’s inability to process visas more quickly. Because of these delays, and the difficulty of reaching the airport, some flights with Afghans are leaving while only partly full.

As of Thursday afternoon – the most recent count available – the American military had evacuated 7K Americans, Afghans and others since Saturday. That’s well short of the 5K to 9K passengers a day that the military will be able to fly out once the evacuation is at full throttle, officials said.

As one policy wonk complained to the NYT, the chaos at the airport “could have been avoided” if the Biden Administration had simply factored evacuations into its plans for pulling out American troops.

“There are tens of thousands of Americans and Afghans literally at the gate,” said Sunil Varghese, the policy director for the International Refugee Assistance Project. “This could have been completely avoided if evacuation was part of the military withdrawal.”

Other western countries are having more success exfiltrating their citizens and Afghans granted residency status partly because they’re using special forces and others to guide passengers to the airport, ensuring they can easily get inside and make their flights. After a German was shot Friday trying to enter the airport, Germany has dispatched armed helicopters to ferry Germans to the airport, though they would only be deployed in “extraordinary circumstances.” France meanwhile has sent three transport planes to Kabul along with special forces to escort French nationals to the airport. The British have succeeded in evacuating 963 people from Kabul over the past 24 hours. But with time running out, and the process of getting people to the airport remaining “immensely difficult,” one British commander told WSJ that there’s still a strong possibility that some people will be left behind.

“Eventually the air bridge will have to close and quite possibly not everybody will have been got out. That’s what keeps us awake at night. That’s what’s motivating to us to work as hard as we are to ensure that those numbers are the absolute minimum,” he said.

Will we hear a similar admission from President Biden during his planned address to the nation Friday afternoon? We think that’s doubtful. But it doesn’t mean it won’t happen…

US Still Considering Bombing Military Equipment, Especially Aircraft, Left In Afghanistan

Multiple disturbing and shocking reports have detailed this week that literally billions of dollars in US weaponry and military equipment were left behind amid the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban have been proudly sporting these weapons, even in some cases posing with US-supplied air force hardware liked Black Hawk helicopters.

Biden admin officials says they are still mulling plans to bomb and destroy US equipment in the country from the air. “Everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now,” one official told Reuters.

There’s growing pressure for the White House to do something in this regard, given not only the number of viral media stories detailing the Taliban’s new US arsenal, but especially that Congress is getting involved, with a group of Senators this week led by Marco Rubio writing a scathing letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Such commonsense is rare. From Ray McGovern

Forget western media! Indian media is doing a fine job at reporting this.

Chaos, gridlocked streets & panic in Kabul as desperate Afghans try to flee

Afghan parents pass children over airport wall

China’s Afghan Game: Minerals worth $1 Trillion

The Taliban is now sitting on minerals worth $1 trillion spread across Afghanistan. A 2010 Pentagon report called Afghanistan the ‘Saudi Arabia of Lithium’. Is this why China is striking deals with the Taliban? Palki Sharma has a report.