Austin has already been bad-mouthed by Trump. But he may get some more.General Frank McKenzie, the head of Central Command, told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that once the US troop presence was pushed below 2,500 as part of Washington’s bid to complete a total withdrawal by the end of August, the unravelling of the US-backed Afghan government accelerated.
“The signing of the Doha agreement [in which the US promised to fully withdraw its troops by May 2021 and the Taliban committed to several conditions, including stopping attacks on US and coalition forces] had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military – psychological more than anything else, but we set a date – certain for when we were going to leave and when they could expect all assistance to end,” McKenzie said.
[...]
The stated objective was to promote a peace negotiation between the Taliban and the Afghan government, but that diplomatic effort had failed to gain traction before former US President Donald Trump was replaced by President Joe Biden in January.
The new US president pushed ahead with the plan for the troop withdrawal but extended the deadline to August 31.
McKenzie said he also had believed “for quite a while” that if the US reduced the number of its military advisers in Afghanistan below 2,500, the collapse of the government in Kabul would be inevitable “and that the military would follow”.
He said in addition to the morale-depleting effects of the Doha agreement, the troop reduction ordered by Biden in April was ”the other nail in the coffin” for the 20-year war effort because it blinded the US military to conditions inside the Afghan army, “because our advisers were no longer down there with those units”.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, testifying alongside McKenzie, said he agreed with McKenzie’s analysis.
alJazeera
To be clear, he's not talking about Trump.[General Austin] added that the Doha agreement also committed the US to ending air attacks against the Taliban, “so the Taliban got stronger, they increased their offensive operations against the Afghan security forces, and the Afghans were losing a lot of people on a weekly basis”.
[...]
[General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,] listed a number of factors responsible for the US defeat going back to a missed opportunity to capture or kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora soon after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
He also cited the 2003 decision to invade Iraq, which shifted US troops away from Afghanistan.
[...]
Republicans have accused Biden of lying about the military commanders’ recommendations to keep 2,500 troops in the country, playing down warnings of the risks of a Taliban victory, and exaggerating the US’s ability to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven for armed groups like al-Qaeda.
“I fear the president may be delusional,” said Mike Rogers.
Wednesday’s hearing was politically charged, descending repeatedly into shouting matches, as representatives argued over what Democrats characterised as partisan Republican attacks on Biden, particularly over an August television interview in which the president denied his commanders had recommended keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.
They could only report no known civilian casualties if they hadn't yet done even the simplest investigation.[O]n Friday, officials said an internal review revealed that no Islamic State members had been killed in the attack, only civilians.
"The strike was a tragic mistake," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told a Pentagon news conference.
"I am now convinced that as many as 10 civilians, including up to seven children, were tragically killed in that strike," McKenzie added. "Moreover, we now assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died were associated with ISIS-K, or a direct threat to U.S. forces."
[...]
At the time, a U.S. Central Command spokesman said officials believed the attack in Nangahar Province had killed the target and that there were no known civilian casualties.
NPR
Destroying any credibility he had for his resistance to Trump.The strike was hailed as a success that had blocked "multiple suicide bombers" from further attacks on the airport as people desperately sought to leave the country.
[...]
In a press conference Sept. 1, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley called it a "righteous strike" that correctly followed procedures.
Sixty pieces of bad itelligence, as it happens.As many as six U.S. Reaper drones had tracked a white Toyota Corolla for eight hours and deemed it an imminent threat, McKenzie explained.
In all, he said, U.S. forces had collected more than 60 pieces of intelligence indicating another attack was imminent.
My guess is that it won't.Independent investigations by The New York Times and The Washington Post are calling into question the U.S. military claims that its Aug. 29 drone strike in Kabul destroyed a car operated by an ISIS-K sympathizer, which allegedly contained explosives destined for the Kabul airport.
The U.S. Central Command initial statement described the strike as a "self-defense" operation that eliminated an "imminent ISIS-K threat" to the airport. "Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material."
[...]
But the Times and Post investigations were unable to find evidence of any explosives in the car, which they say was driven by 43-year-old Zemari Ahmadi, an engineer working for the U.S. aid group Nutrition and Education International, which aims to eliminate malnutrition in Afghanistan. Family members told the Times that Ahmadi had applied for refugee resettlement in the United States.
[...]
Military officials had said the driver seemed to have loaded explosives into the car that day, but security camera footage obtained by the Times shows the alleged explosives were likely containers used to carry water home to his family. "I filled the containers myself, and helped him load them into the trunk," a guard told the Times.
[...]
Ahmadi's relatives told the Times that 10 members of their family were killed, including seven children.
[...]
U.S. Central Command spokesperson Capt. Bill Urban declined to comment on the allegations, citing an ongoing investigation.
The Centcom group that gathered the intelligence is reviewing all the information it had, although it's uncertain when or if any results will be made public. [...]
The Times and Post analyses also called into question military assertions of "secondary explosions" in the courtyard. Times reporters could find no evidence of a second explosion at the scene. Experts pointed to the lack of collapsed walls or destroyed vegetation. "It seriously questions the credibility of the intelligence or technology utilized to determine this was a legitimate target," security consultant Chris Cobb-Smith told the Times.
"My theory is: The [Hellfire] explosives themselves ruptured the gas tank, released the vapor, and because of the fire that happened a short time afterward, it detonated and caused something that may have been explosion-like," said Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Steven Kwon, president of California-based Nutrition and Education International, told the Post that the white sedan belonged to the organization. After Ahmadi met at the NEI compound to discuss an emergency food aid program for displaced people, he spent the rest of the day running errands, Kwon said.
Kwon denied that NEI has any association with ISIS-K. "We're trying to help people," he told the Post. "Why would we have explosives to kill people?"
NPR
Okay, but there was that original insane plan to have the last person out on the anniversary of the twin towers destruction (who came up with that one?), and at any rate, why wait until June to do that?The debate over the tragedy in Afghanistan has swirled around why the U.S. was so slow in evacuating Afghan allies eligible for Special Immigrant visas (SIVs). There are many reasons. One is that the Trump administration intentionally broke the SIV processing system in 2017 creating a huge backlog of Afghan partners who could have been evacuated earlier.
The system was so gummed up that, by early 2021, the average wait time for an SIV had soared to well over two years.
[...]
In 2006, Congress established SIVs for Iraqis and Afghans who had worked for the U.S. military and U.S. government agencies. Initially, SIV issuance was painfully slow. Only 371 Iraqi and Afghan principal applicants (plus family members) received SIVs in 2008, as former employees on the list were being targeted for murder in Iraq.
[...]
The number of Iraqi SIVs increased from 172 in 2008 to 1,418 in 2009 and 940 in 2010. We made progress and saved lives.
In 2011, two individuals who entered the U.S. as refugees were indicted for seeking to aid terrorists in Iraq. The vetting system was tightened and SIV issuances decreased before picking up again.
[...]
In 2017, the new administration tried to implement a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. and ordered the implementation of “extreme vetting” of foreign nationals, including SIV applicants.
Under the White House’s direction, and Department of Homeland Security leadership, Washington agencies proposed new and in some cases duplicative and impractical vetting procedures.
[...]
The White House announced the new vetting system in an executive order on Sept. 24, 2017, including specific country exclusions.
[...]
[T]he Trump administration would systematically strip personnel in various agencies from refugee and SIV processing, reassigning law enforcement and intelligence officials to other duties. Even minor or ambiguous issues could bring vetting to a standstill.
[...]
In effect, President Trump and aide Stephen Miller greatly increased the vetting workload and then starved the system of resources to do the job.
The number of SIVs issued dropped by the hundreds. Iraqi SIVs fell from 557 in 2017 to 152 in 2019; the number of Afghan SIVs went from 4,120 in 2017 to 1,799 in 2020, as the number of applicants ballooned.
The processing time for Afghan SIV applicants in early 2021 reached 703 days.
[...]
In June, Secretary Blinken added 50 additional State Department personnel to process SIV applications. That is an important step. The U.S. Government also moved to eliminate unnecessary procedures and bring greater information technology resources to bear on the process.
The Hill
And if the Biden Administration had moved on it in February or March.Many factors contributed to the SIV backlog that resulted in the desperate crowds at Kabul’s airport, including delays due to COVID-19 and incomplete applications. But thousands of SIV applicants should have and could have been moved sooner if the Trump administration had not deliberately broken the SIV processing system.
Fat chance.America’s longest war came to an end just before midnight local time in Afghanistan, when the last evacuation flight flew out of Kabul airport.
A C-17 military transport plane took off carrying the US commander who oversaw the evacuation operation, Maj Gen Christopher Donahue of the 82nd Airborne Division, and the acting US ambassador, Ross Wilson, who were the last two Americans to step off the tarmac in Kabul, minutes before the 31 August deadline.
[...]
The US gave up its last toehold in Kabul to the guerrilla group it ousted with initial ease in 2001, marking a defeat on the scale of Vietnam.
There was no fanfare or ceremony, and no handing over of flags to Kabul’s new masters. All remaining armoured vehicles and other military equipment items were destroyed or rendered useless and the Taliban were notified of the last flight.
[...]
US diplomatic operations have now been moved from Kabul to Qatar.
[...]
More than 100 Americans remain in Afghanistan who wanted to leave but were unable to get on the last flights, [US secretary of state Antony Blinken] said, but that the State Department would keep working to get them out.
He reiterated a pledge to hold the Taliban to their commitments to let people leave the country and said it was time to “learn lessons” from the US’s 20-year presence in Afghanistan.
Guardian
What about Afghanis? NATO personnel?
[...]
The head of US Central Command, Gen Kenneth McKenzie, announced [...] “The cost was 2,461 US service members and civilians killed and more than 20,000 who were injured.”
Jesus. Almost as many civilians as fighters. (And perhaps they were undercounted.)Nearly 50,000 Afghan civilians and 70,000 Afghan soldiers and police are estimated to have died in the violence since 2001.
And 13 killed by ISIS-K (ISKP) doing it.In the last 24 hours of the US presence, about 1,000 Afghans were evacuated who had worked for or with the US, bringing the total civilian evacuation carried out this month to 123,000. Of that total, 79,000 were flown out by the US military, including 6,000 US nationals.
It was the biggest noncombatant evacuation in US military history. McKenzie called it a “monumental achievement”, noting it included three helicopter extractions of 185 stranded Americans and 21 Germans.
On top of that, special forces brought 2,017 vulnerable Afghans, 1,064 American citizens and 127 nationals from third countries to the airport by road.
Good luck with that.There were no evacuees left behind on the tarmac but McKenzie admitted: “There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure. We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out.” He said that would now be the task of the diplomats.
Read: Military.“The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments.”
The best-equipped military in the history of the world, turned out to be no match for the patience of a brutal, unrelenting Taliban.
“You have the watches,” the Taliban are fond of saying. “We have the time.”
Guardian
And go where?The U.S. launched a drone strike on Sunday targeting a vehicle that presented an "imminent ISIS-K threat" to Kabul’s international airport, U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said in a statement.
[...]
"Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material. We are assessing the possibilities of civilian casualties, though we have no indications at this time."
[...]
President Biden said on Saturday that U.S. commanders in Afghanistan told him earlier in the day that the threat of another terrorist attack near Kabul's airport was "highly likely in the next 24-36 hours."
[...]
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul released an alert late Saturday that Americans should "immediately" leave the airport area due to "a specific, credible threat.
Axios
“U.S. military forces conducted a self-defense unmanned over-the-horizon airstrike today on a vehicle in Kabul, eliminating an imminent ISIS-K threat to Hamad Karzai International airport,” Navy Capt. Bill Urban, the Centcom spokesman, said in a statement Sunday morning.
“We are confident we successfully hit the target. Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material,” he said. “We are assessing the possibilities of civilian casualties, though we have no indications at this time. We remain vigilant for potential future threats.”
Earlier Sunday, the Taliban said that a U.S. airstrike targeted a suicide bomber in a vehicle Sunday who wanted to attack the Kabul international airport amid the American military’s evacuation there.
There were few initial details about the incident, as well as a rocket that struck a neighborhood just northwest of the airport, killing a child.
Air Force Times
The Sunday drone strike comes after the U.S. said it killed two ISIS-K targets on Friday night in response to the Kabul airport bombing, which killed as many as 170 people, in addition to 13 U.S. service members.
President Joe Biden has given the Pentagon the “green light” to strike any targets affiliated with the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-K, the group responsible for the attack, without seeking White House approval, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the operation.
Senior Pentagon leaders already had this authority, but Biden reaffirmed it in instructions to the military on Friday, one of the officials said.
The president’s “guidance is to just do it,” the person said. “If we find more, we will strike them.”
[...]
As of Saturday, more than 117,000 people have been evacuated, with a majority being Afghans, according to Taylor. Approximately 5,400 evacuees are American citizens.
"Despite the treacherous situation in Kabul, we are continuing to evacuate civilians, Biden said Saturday. "Yesterday, we brought out another 6,800 people, including hundreds of Americans. And today, we discussed the ongoing preparations to help people continue to leave Afghanistan after our military departs."
The Pentagon on Saturday released the names of the 13 U.S. servicemembers killed in the airport suicide bombing, whose remains were being flown to the United States.
The 11 Marines are Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City, Utah; Sgt. Johanny Rosariopichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts; Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento, California; Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, California; Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha, Nebraska; Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Indiana; Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas; Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Missouri; Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyoming; Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, California, and Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, California. Also killed were Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio, and Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tennessee.
Politico
Probably. That sounds better than Trump bluster. But let's face it, we drop bombs on more people than any other country in the world. So there's thatThe attack happened on the same Kabul street where the extended family lived, adding to the bloodshed and chaos of the last days of the US military presence. Among the dead were three children aged two, two children aged three and two older children.
Reports from Kabul suggested some of the children had run out to greet one of the adults killed, an NGO worker, as he returned home.
A relative of the victims, Ramin Yousufi, told the BBC that the youngest victim was two-year-old Sumaya, and the oldest child was Farzad, 12.
“It’s wrong, it’s a brutal attack, and it’s happened based on wrong information,” he told the broadcaster. “Why have they killed our family? Our children? They are so burnt out we cannot identify their bodies, their faces.”
Another relative said the family had applied for evacuation to the US and were waiting to be called to Kabul airport.
US military officials continued to insist that the strike hit an IS car bomb, pointing to “secondary explosions” at the scene. That conflicted with reports from Kabul that the targeted vehicle belonged to a civilian and that children were in it when it was struck by a missile from a US drone.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, announced an investigation, adding: “We take steps to avoid civilian casualties in every scenario, probably more than almost any country in the world.”
Guardian
Thirteen!The number of Afghans killed in a suicide bomb attack on Kabul airport on Thursday has risen to 79, a hospital official told Reuters on Friday.
More than 120 people were wounded, some were still in hospital but many had returned home, the official said.
US forces helping to evacuate Afghans desperate to flee new Taliban rule were on alert on Friday after the Islamic State attack, which also killed 13 US.service members.
The Guardian
Are you fucking kidding me?US President Joe Biden said “there may have been” a list of names of vulnerable Afghans given to the Taliban in an effort to facilitate United States evacuations from the country, as reported by an American news site.
alJazeera
Making it absolutely obvious that it did.The comments came after Biden was asked about a Politico news site report on Thursday that said the US provided the names of American citizens, green-card holders, and Afghans eligible for expedited US visas to the Taliban to help those fleeing the country gain access to the airport.
[...]
“There may have been. But I know of no circumstance. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that here’s the names of 12 people, they’re coming, let them through. It could very well have happened,” said Biden.
Meanwhile, a United Nations report warned last week the Taliban was intensifying its search for people who supported American and NATO forces.
Afghan campaigners have been engaged in climate activism and social justice work in their country.
“Everybody is scared and feeling quite hopeless as the situation is rapidly deteriorating,” said Sarah Greenfield Clark, co-founder of Climate 2025, a non-profit that supports emerging movements.
“We need help. Fridays for Future is a relatively new organisation. We need better links with established humanitarian NGOs and experienced contacts to help us put these names on evacuation lists,” Greenfield Clark said on the phone from London. “These people’s lives are in danger.”
FFF activists have been trying to get the names and details of Afghan campaigners and their families on to evacuation lists with officials coordinating flights and aid agencies.
But eight days after the first calls for help were made, there had been no response, said those working on the rescue.
“Countries around the world are now indicating a withdrawal of state forces from Afghanistan over the coming days, leaving many FFF activists in grave danger,” Fridays for Future said in a statement, calling for a coordinated humanitarian effort as time runs out.
“Me and the other activists feel as though we are being abandoned, even by the organisations we have worked closely with over the years,” an unnamed 24-year-old climate campaigner based in Kabul was quoted as saying in FFF’s statement.
“We feel that no one can know what we are going through, and that the rest of the world will just continue on as normal and we will be completely forgotten about after [August] 31st. No one has the will to help us,” the activist added.
Guardian
So will Biden send in more troops? Are we back in the war?Multiple U.S. troops and civilians were injured when two explosions shook the area outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in rapid succession this morning, where the United States and NATO allies had been evacuating thousands of people from the city, the Pentagon confirmed.
[...]
Kirby also confirmed a second explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, roughly 300 meters from the site of the first detonation. British troops had been using the hotel as a base for evacuating UK personnel.
An ISIS militant wearing a suicide vest was responsible for the first bombing, two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the situation told POLITICO, detonating around 5 p.m. local time just outside Abbey gate.
Politico
We have gotten ourselves into a nightmare.NATO troops have been ordered to leave the airport gates immediately, two people said.
[...]
On Wednesday evening local time in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued an alert warning Americans to avoid the area “[b]ecause of security threats outside the gates of Kabul airport.”
Less than an hour before confirming the explosion, Kirby said the evacuation was continuing and committed to relocating “as many people as we can until the end of the mission.”
As of early Thursday morning, the White House said the total number of people evacuated from Kabul since the operation began on Aug. 14 was 95,700, including 13,400 in the last 24 hours.
[...]
In the last day, the Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, had denied that an airport attack had been imminent, telling The Associated Press about the warnings: “It’s not correct.”
It's going to be hard to leave if you can't travel to the airport.The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a security alert on Saturday cautioning Americans seeking to evacuate Afghanistan about going to the airport in the country's capital, citing “potential security threats.”
[...]
“Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so,” the alert stated.
The Hill
It's looking like we can't do enough.The embassy alert Saturday followed another issued three days earlier that warned the U.S. “cannot ensure safe passage” to the airport in Kabul. “The security situation in Kabul continues to change quickly, including at the airport,” that alert read.
[...]
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers on a call Friday afternoon that he was “aware” that Afghans and Americans who were trying to make their way to the airport in Kabul “have been harassed or even beaten by the Taliban.”
Austin's remarks contrasted with President Biden's comments earlier Friday at the White House, when he claimed “where we have seen challenges for Americans we have thus far been able to resolve them.”
"We have no indication that they haven't been able to get in Kabul through the airport," Biden asserted of Americans, despite reporting on the ground indicating chaos at Taliban checkpoints. "We've made an agreement with the Taliban. Thus far, they've allowed them to go through."
[...]
Biden said on Friday that the U.S. would do “everything that we can to provide safe evacuation for our Afghan allies, partners, and Afghans who might be targeted because of their association with the United States.”
I have to wonder why all of this wasn't being done since the moment Trump made the deal with the Taliban (leaving then presdient Ghani out of the deal-making altogether) to pull out troops.Embassy staff on Saturday urged Americans and their relatives who have not filled out their repatriation assistance requests to fill out the form as quickly as possible and told U.S. citizens not to contact the embassy about details regarding their flights.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a brutal rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical.
[...]
The Taliban declared an "amnesty" across Afghanistan and urged women to join their government Tuesday, seeking to convince a wary population that they have changed a day after deadly chaos gripped the main airport as desperate crowds tried to flee their rule.
NPR
