Afghanistan news and discussions

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caltrek
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Turkey Holds First Talks With Taliban After Deadly Afghanistan Blasts
August 27, 2021

[https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/a ... an-blasts/][/url]

Introduction:
(AFP via The National) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said Turkey held its first talks with the Taliban in Kabul and that Ankara was still assessing the Islamist group's offer to run the airport in the Afghan capital.

The Turkish leader said the talks were held at a military section of Kabul airport where the Turkish embassy is temporarily stationed.

“We have held our first talks with the Taliban, which lasted three and a half hours,” Mr Erdogan said. “If necessary, we will have the opportunity to hold such talks again.”

Responding to domestic criticism over Turkey's engagement with the insurgent group, Erdogan said Ankara had “no luxury” to stand idly by in the volatile region.

“You cannot know what their expectations are or what our expectations are without talking. What's diplomacy, my friend? This is diplomacy,” Mr Erdogan said.
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Who is Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Enigmatic Taliban Leader Tipped to Rule Afghanistan?
by Mina Aldoubri
August 17, 2021

https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/20 ... i-baradar/

Introduction:
(The National) Abdul Ghani Baradar made a triumphant return to Kandahar on Tuesday, as a delegation of top Taliban officials arrived to take power in Afghanistan.

Pictures shared on Taliban social media accounts showed crowds waving the insurgent group's white flag as they waited for Mr Baradar in the country’s second-biggest city, with fireworks being lit to celebrate his return.

One of the most senior members of the Afghan Taliban, Mr Baradar is being tipped as the likely co-leader of the next government, alongside former interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali.

A veteran military commander, Mr Baradar helped found the Taliban and was one of its late leader Mullah Omar's most trusted commanders.
Last edited by caltrek on Mon Aug 30, 2021 2:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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U.S. Says Drone Strike Kills Alleged Planner of Kabul Airport Bombing
by Sayed Ziarmal Hashemi, Kathy Gannon, Ellen Knickmey
August 28, 2021

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-says-d ... t-bombing/

Introduction:
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A US drone strike early Saturday killed a militant in the group blamed for the deadly suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, US officials said, while American forces working under heightened security and threats of another attack pressed ahead in the closing days of the US-led evacuation from Afghanistan.

The attack in eastern Afghanistan killed a member of the country’s Islamic State affiliate, US Central Command said. President Joe Biden has laid responsibility for Thursday’s suicide bombing on the Islamic State, an extremist group that is an enemy both to the West and to Afghanistan’s Taliban and is known for especially lethal attacks.

The death toll in the suicide bombing rose to 169 Afghans, a number that could increase as authorities examine fragmented remains, and 13 US service members.

The command spokesman, Navy Capt. William Urban, said officials knew of no civilian casualties. US officials gave no immediate information on the person killed, including any possible link to the suicide bombing.
Conclusion:
The new rulers have sought to project an image of moderation in recent weeks — a sharp contrast to the harsh rule they imposed from 1996 to 2001, when they forbade girls to get an education, banned television and music and held public executions.
Image
Military personnel walk by Belgian military planes, used as part of an evacuation from Afghanistan, upon arrival at Melsbroek Military Airport in Melsbroek, Belgium, Friday, Aug. 27, 2021.
AP Photo/Olivier Matthys
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''The Answer Cannot Be More War,' House Democrat Says After Deadly Attack in Afghanistan
by Kenny Stancil
August 27, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... fghanistan

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Following Thursday's blasts outside Kabul's international airport and a nearby hotel, which killed and injured dozens of Afghans and several United States military personnel, U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs warned Congress and President Joe Biden against responding to the deadly attack with "more war and violence."

"I am devastated by the loss of U.S. service members and innocent Afghan civilians in Kabul. My heart is with them and their loved ones," the California Democrat said in a statement. "The loss of lives today—those who were trying to escape and those working to protect them—is a heartbreaking tragedy."

"Like many Americans, I'm searching for answers and meaning amidst all of this tragic loss of life," Jacobs continued. "But the answer cannot be more war and violence. The answer cannot be launching more ineffective and unaccountable counterterrorism operations."

"We must resist the urge to let our pain dictate our policy," she added. "If we don't, we will have learned nothing from the last 20 years."
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U.S. Group Says $6 Billion Earmarked for War Should Now Go to Assist Afghan People
by Kenny Stancil
August 27, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... han-people

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) As U.S. lawmakers fight over how to reappropriate the roughly $6 billion previously budgeted or requested to support the now defeated Afghan security forces, one U.S.-based peace group is urging Congress to use the freed up war money "to help save Afghan lives, not to boost Pentagon contractor profits."

The funds in question "include almost $3 billion unspent from fiscal years 2020 and 2021, and $3.3 billion requested by the Pentagon to train and equip the Afghan army, air force, and national police in 2022," Politico reported earlier this week. "The jockeying among lawmakers to find a new home for that money has begun."

In response, Win Without War has launched a petition imploring members of Congress to reject calls to use the billions of dollars currently earmarked for Afghanistan's erstwhile military to buy "a few more F-35s or bombs" and instead spend the money in ways that ameliorate the war-torn country's growing humanitarian crisis.

"In a moment of immense need for the people of Afghanistan, some in Congress intend to divert billions of dollars originally intended for the now-defunct Afghan security forces to wage more endless war abroad," Kate Kizer, policy director at Win Without War, said this week. "This is an outrage."
"We owe the people of Afghanistan an immeasurable debt," Kizer continued. "Every last dollar of the $6 billion must be used to help save Afghan lives, not to boost Pentagon contractor profits."
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Asking If Afghanistan Will Become Breeding Ground for Terror Is the Wrong Question
by Thom Hartmann
August 27, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021 ... g-question

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) The big question in the media today is, "Will Afghanistan again become a 'breeding ground' for terrorists who may again attack America?" It's the wrong question.

We've all heard that question asked, in a dozen variations, probably a hundred times in the past few months in the media. And it's not just the wrong question: it strengthens the GOP frame that lets George W. Bush off the hook for many of his worst failures and crimes.

Afghanistan had little to nothing to do with 9/11.

It's time to put this tired and deceptive canard to bed. The 9/11 attacks were not planned, hatched, developed, funded, practiced, expanded, worked out or otherwise devised in Afghanistan. That country and its leadership in 2001, in fact, had pretty much nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.

But wasn't Bin Laden running a "terror training camp" in Afghanistan? Yes, he was, but, again, it had little to nothing to do specifically with 9/11. It was more like the backwoods training camps that various US rightwing militias run, teaching low-level soldier-wannabee grunts (with the money to pay) how to use weapons and get into physical shape.

But an operation as detailed, well-funded and sophisticated as 9/11 had nothing to do with those yahoos. Bin Laden, who we generously funded during the Reagan administration to help evict the Soviets from Afghanistan, was running Al Qaeda at the time, and while he wrote the checks to pay for 9/11, the actual planning and management of the operation was done out of Pakistan and Germany by Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
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Taliban block Kabul airport to most as foreign airlifts wane
Source: AP

By SAYED ZIARMAL HASHEMI, RAHIM FAIEZ, JILL LAWLESS and ELLEN KNICKMEYER
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban forces sealed off Kabul’s airport on Saturday to most Afghans hoping for evacuation, as the U.S. and its allies wound down a chaotic airlift that will end their troops’ two decades in Afghanistan.

Western leaders acknowledged that their withdrawal would mean leaving behind some of their citizens and many locals who helped them over the years, and they vowed to try to continue working with the Taliban to allow local allies to leave after President Joe Biden’s Tuesday’s deadline to withdraw from the country.

Although most of its allies had finished their evacuation flights, the U.S. planned to keep its round-the-clock flights going until the deadline, saying 117,000 people had been evacuated since the Taliban claimed Kabul on Aug. 15.

Britain was carrying out its final evacuation flights Saturday, though Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to “shift heaven and earth” to get more of those at risk from the Taliban to Britain by other means.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/europe-busin ... d27be13e73
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US airstrike targets Islamic State in Afghanistan after deadly Kabul airport attack
Source: Sky News
The US has killed an Islamic State "planner" in retaliation for Thursday's suicide bombing in Kabul.

Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for US Central Command, said the US military had conducted a drone strike against an Islamic State member in Afghanistan's Nangahar Province.

The strike killed one person and there were no known civilian casualties, he said.

The move was in retaliation for a devastating suicide bombing by Islamic State offshoot ISIS-K, which killed more than 160 Afghans and 13 military personnel, along with two Britons.
Read more: https://news.sky.com/story/us-airstrike ... k-12392733
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Axios
@axios
NEW: U.S. and 97 other countries announce deal with Taliban to continue evacuating allies past Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline
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Biden aide: US has capacity to evacuate remaining Americans
Source: AP

By ROBERT BURNS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has the capacity to evacuate the approximately 300 U.S. citizens remaining in Afghanistan who want to leave before President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday. He also said the administration’s current plan is not to have “an ongoing embassy presence″ after the final U.S. troop withdrawal.

With Biden warning that another terrorist attack was “highly likely” after last week’s suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, Sullivan said the U.S. has shown in other countries that it is capable of “suppressing the terrorism threat ... without a large permanent presence on the ground. ... And we will do that in Afghanistan as well as we go forward.”

Biden has pledged to keep up airstrikes against the Islamic extremist group whose airport attack killed scores of Afghans and 13 American service members. Biden was traveling to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Sunday for a “dignified transfer” movement, a military ritual of receiving the remains of fallen troops killed in foreign combat.

The Pentagon said a U.S. drone mission in eastern Afghanistan killed two members of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday local time in retaliation for the airport bombing, and Biden said the extremists can expect more.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/islamic-stat ... 9f41733161
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