LIVE: Pentagon briefing on crisis in Afghanistan after explosions near Kabul airport — 8/26/2021 - YouTube
Attachment 74836
All commercial flights give Afghanistan air space a miss.
Attachment 74837
Hamid Karzai International Airport
At least 60 people killed- including 12+ US military- and counting. It's War, between ISIS K and the Taliban- who they consider to be "hopelessly Liberal". It's gonna be brutal.
Gee, if only there could be a large military to occupy the place to keep 'relative' peace and ensure the civilian population doesn't suffer too much. Nah, 2million+ civilians did under Russian occupation . . .
The whole place is a clusterfu@k.
I'd love to know who you're quoting . . . amazing.
GIYF & all that, PH-
Afghanistan's chilling new face of terror: 'ISIS-K' slaughter patients in their hospital beds, bomb girls schools... and see the Taliban as far too liberal.
Afghanistan's chilling new face of terror: 'ISIS-K' see the Taliban as far too liberal | Daily Mail Online
Yes, amazing.
Coolio, bit if you quote something it shouldn't be up to others to research it - just sayin'
I'm very skeptical about anything working out in Afghanistan.
The Taliban are not nation-builders and are not an organised monolith, well except that they can't seem to change from their medieval concepts. Whether we like it or not or it's seen as 'west-splaining' (just made that up) a nation needs to be built on more than the coarse outlines of a 1370 year old text.
That doesn't get you potable water, power grids or any functioning infrastructure - let's not even touch on the subject of women's roles and education . . . though they have said they'd allow girls' education up to the age of 9.
Add to this the existence of an arch-enemy who is even further splintered and more radical and blood-thirsty . . . and who looks exactly like you do (Afghans) . . . it'll turn to shit and the west will have to step in on humanitarian grounds quite quickly.
You would almost like to let these medieval savages have it out with one another to cull the herd, but the largest group of casualties will be civilians.
McMaster on Afghanistan carnage: ‘What we saw today is just the beginning’Quote:
Former Trump administration national security adviser H.R. McMaster called on President Biden to “reverse course” in the aftermath of Thursday’s terrorist bombings in Kabul, urging him to scrap his deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, cut off dealings with the Taliban and launch a new war on terror against jihadi networks throughout Central Asia.
“What we saw today is just the beginning,” McMaster said in an interview with Yahoo News about the deadly attacks in Kabul. “We are going to see horrible image after horrible image. … We’re going to confront the steady drumbeat of horrors inflicted on the Afghan people. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to give a damn? Or is this going to be like Rwanda?” He was referring to the genocide in 1994, when ethnic extremists slaughtered 800,000 people in Rwanda.
McMaster’s comments came as Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed two explosions on Thursday. Kirby described one of the blasts as a “complex attack” outside the Abbey Gate near the Kabul airport that reportedly killed “a number of U.S. service members” and as many as 60 Afghans, including some children, and injured more than 143 people.
The attacks prompted the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to warn U.S. citizens to stay away from the airport and leave the area “immediately” if they were by the gates. The blasts deal another setback to President Biden’s goal of evacuating all Americans from the country by his self-imposed deadline of Aug. 31 for removing U.S. troops.
U.S. officials had been stating for days that they had specific, credible warnings of a potential terrorist attack on the airport by an Islamic State affiliate called ISIS-K. There has been no reported claim of responsibility for the Thursday explosions so far, but McMaster said in the interview that he suspects that the Haqqani network — a criminal and terror organization aligned with the Taliban and al-Qaida — played a role.
“I would not be surprised at all if ISIS-K — in fact, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t the case — is being used by the Haqqani network as a cutout to attack us and humiliate us on our way out,” he said.
Known for his hawkish views on foreign policy, McMaster portrayed Thursday’s attacks as a vindication for his sharp criticisms of Biden’s decision to pull out the troops by Aug. 31, as well as what he has called former President Donald Trump’s “surrender agreement” with the Taliban in February 2020, which paved the way for the U.S. withdrawal.
McMaster said he was not speaking as a partisan and that there was plenty of blame to go around among multiple U.S. presidents. But he was especially withering in his assessment of how Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo conducted their negotiations with the Taliban. The president and secretary in effect decided, McMaster said, “Hey, we’re going to sit down with the Taliban and essentially negotiate our withdrawal. Afghan government, stay on the sidelines. What did that do for the legitimacy of the Afghan government? ... Then what did we do? We forced them to release 5,000 prisoners — for nothing.”
At this point, McMaster continued, “it’s time to reverse course.” He then called on Biden to scrap the troop withdrawal, extend the perimeter around the airport, create other safe areas in Afghanistan where civilians can be protected from the Taliban and even “engage” with anti-Taliban resistance groups that have begun fighting in the northern regions of the country.
More broadly, McMaster called for a renewed and more robust war on terrorism in the region.
“We have to redouble counterterrorism efforts broadly across the region, with Central Asian states,” he said, “in the areas of intelligence sharing and going after these groups quite aggressively — not just with military but with law enforcement capabilities, with financial actions — to isolate these groups from sources of support. We have to make clear that we will not tolerate American leaders advocating for recognition of the Taliban.”
But what if you just help Isis? They are worse (do I really need to emphasize that now?). I would prefer us to bomb the shit out of them, and hope the Tali can mop it up on the ground. You are just being talked back into War by the same old arseholes. I would hope you're a bit wiser now.
U.S. officials provided Taliban with names of Americans, Afghan allies to evacuateQuote:
Lara Seligman, Alexander Ward and Andrew Desiderio
Thu, August 26, 2021, 7:28 AM·5 min read
U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that's prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.
The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.
Since the fall of Kabul in mid-August, nearly 100,000 people have been evacuated, most of whom had to pass through the Taliban's many checkpoints. But the decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.
“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”
Asked about POLITICO's reporting during a Thursday news conference, President Joe Biden said he wasn't sure there were such lists, but also didn't deny that sometimes the U.S. hands over names to the Taliban.
This whole thing is a total clusterfuck.
In my opinion they should have just stayed there and treat it as a training ground for troops.
Death toll rises to 90 in Kabul airport blast
KABUL (Agencies): The death toll at the Kabul airport surged to 90 on Friday, with the number of the injured also increasing to 150 after two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Afghans at the airlift desperate to flee the country.
At least 77 Afghans and 13 US military soldiers were killed in the attacks on Thursday, confirmed international media reports, while scores were injured in the attack, with some in critical condition.
A day earlier, the US and other Western countries had warned of a terrorist attack at the Kabul airport, cautioning citizens to stay away from there.
However, that advice was left unheeded by thousands of Afghans who had thronged the airlift at the time of the attacks, desperate to flee the Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
Pentagon confirms 13 American troops killed
The US Defense Department said Thursday that the number of American troops killed in the suicide bombings at Kabul airport rose by one to 13, and the number of wounded was 18, reported AFP.
“A thirteenth US service member has died from his wounds suffered as a result of the attack on Abbey Gate,” Central Command spokesman Captain Bill Urban said in a statement.
Ten of those killed and several wounded were US Marines, Marine Corps spokesman Major Jim Stenger said in a statement.
“We mourn the loss of these Marines and pray for their families,” Stenger said.
“Our Marines will continue the mission, carrying on our Corps´ legacy of always standing ready to meet the challenges of every extraordinary task our Nation requires,” he said.
The military has yet to provide any details of what occurred in the attack, which was carried out by the Afghanistan branch of the Daesh group.
The outer perimeter of access to the airport is controlled by the Taliban, and the airport gates are managed under heavy security by the Marines and other troops.
They have been in charge of allowing passage of into the airport of thousands of people each day seeking to flee the country after the Taliban seized control of the government.
That requires them to examine the evacuees for their travel papers and security risks, General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of the US Central Command, said Thursday.
“We have to check people before they get onto the airfield,” McKenzie said.
“We can´t do that with standoff. You ultimately have to get very close to that person,” he said.
Daesh, an enemy of the Taliban as well as the West, said one of its suicide bombers targeted “translators and collaborators with the American army”.
US on alert for more attacks
General Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said US commanders were on alert for more attacks by Daesh, including possibly rockets or vehicle-borne bombs targeting the airport.
“We’re doing everything we can to be prepared,” he said, adding that some intelligence was being shared with the Taliban and that he believed “some attacks have been thwarted by them.”
US forces are racing to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan by an Aug. 31 deadline set by President Joe Biden, who says the United States had long ago achieved its original rationale for invading the country in 2001: to root out al Qaeda militants and prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Biden said he had ordered the Pentagon to plan how to strike a Daesh affiliate that claimed the responsibility.
“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden said during televised comments from the White House.
Video taken in the aftermath of the attack showed corpses in a sewage canal by the airport fence, some being fished out and laid in heaps while wailing civilians searched for loved ones.
“I saw bodies and body parts flying in the air like a tornado blowing plastic bags,” said one Afghan witness. “That little water flowing in the sewage canal had turned into blood.”
Zubair, a 24 year-old civil engineer, said he was close to a suicide bomber who detonated explosives.
“Men, women and children were screaming. I saw many injured people – men, women and children – being loaded into private vehicles and taken toward the hospitals,” he said.
A US Central Command spokesperson said 18 soldiers injured in the attack were “in the process of being aeromedically evacuated from Afghanistan on specially equipped C-17s with embarked surgical units”.
A Taliban official said at least 28 members of the group were killed in the attack.
“We have lost more people than the Americans in the airport blast,” he said, adding the Taliban was “not responsible for the chaotic evacuation plan prepared by foreign nations”.
Western countries fear that the Taliban, who once sheltered Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda, will allow Afghanistan to turn again into a haven for militants. The Taliban say they will not let the country be used by terrorists.
Airlift continues
The US would press on with evacuations despite the threat of further attacks, McKenzie said, noting that there were still around 1,000 U.S. citizens in Afghanistan.
The pace of evacuation flights had accelerated on Friday and American passport holders had been allowed to enter the airport compound, said a Western security official stationed inside the airport.
In the past 12 days, Western countries have evacuated nearly 100,000 people. But they acknowledge that thousands will be left behind when the last US troops leave at the end of the month.
Several Western countries said the mass airlift of civilians was coming to an end and announced their last remaining troops had left the country.
The American casualties in Thursday’s attack were believed to be the most US troops killed in Afghanistan in a single incident since 30 personnel died when a helicopter was shot down in 2011.
The US deaths were the first in action in Afghanistan in 18 months, a fact likely to be cited by critics who accuse Biden of recklessly abandoning a stable and hard-won status quo by ordering an abrupt pullout.
Pakistan condemns attack
Pakistan strongly condemned the heinous terrorist attack at Kabul airport and extended its condolences to the bereaved families, according to a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the heinous terrorist attack at Kabul airport, which reportedly resulted in loss of precious lives, including children. We condemn terrorism in all forms and manifestations, convey our condolences to bereaved families and pray for early recovery of the injured,” the Foreign Office said.
Death toll rises to 90 in Kabul airport blast - The Frontier Post
US presses on with evacuations despite fears of more attacks
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The United States pressed on with the monumental evacuation from Afghanistan on Friday amid tighter security measures and fears of more bloodshed, a day after the suicide attack at the Kabul airport that killed well over 100 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
The U.S. warned more attacks could come ahead of President Joe Biden’s fast- approaching deadline to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan by Tuesday.
Two officials said the Afghan death toll in Thursday’s bombing rose to 169, while the United States said it was the deadliest day for American forces in Afghanistan since August 2011. Biden blamed the attack on Afghanistan’s offshoot of the Islamic State group, an enemy of both the Taliban and the West.
The officials who gave the Afghan death toll were not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon also said Friday that there was a bombing only at the airport gate, not at two locations, as U.S. officials initially said.
As the call to prayer echoed Friday through Kabul along with the roar of departing planes, the anxious crowds thronging the airport in hope of escaping Taliban rule appeared as large as ever despite the bombing. Afghans, American citizens and other foreigners were all acutely aware the window is closing to board a flight before the airlift ends and Western troops withdraw.
The attacks led Jamshad to head there in the morning with his wife and three small children, clutching an invitation to a Western country he didn’t want to name.
“After the explosion I decided I would try because I am afraid now there will be more attacks, and I think now I have to leave,” said Jamshad, who like many Afghans uses only one name.
The names of the Afghan victims began emerging and included an news agency founder along with a number of impoverished Afghans who had gone to the airport in hopes of realizing a better life.
The 13 U.S. service members who died included 10 Marines, a Navy sailor and an Army soldier. The military has not identified them or given a service affiliation for the last victim.
By the morning after the attack, the Taliban posted a pickup full of fighters and three captured Humvees and set up a barrier 500 meters (1,600 feet) from the airport, holding the crowds farther back from the U.S. troops at the airport gates.
Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said in the hours after the bombings that the U.S. would adjust security outside the gates as needed, including possibly asking the Taliban to change the location of their checkpoints.
McKenzie said American forces have to stand close to would-be evacuees to make sure they are not carrying any weapons that could cause even greater loss of life aboard a plane.
“Somebody has actually got to watch someone else in the eyes and decide that they’re ready to come in” the airport gates, McKenzie said.
In an emotional speech Thursday night, Biden vowed to complete the evacuation and hunt down the Islamic State militants responsible for the carnage. The group’s Afghanistan affiliate is which is far more radical than the Taliban fighters who seized power less than two weeks ago in a lightning blitz across the country.
“We will rescue the Americans, we will get our Afghan allies out, and our mission will go on,” Biden said.
The Taliban have wrested back control of Afghanistan two decades after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks. Their return to power has terrified many Afghans, who fear they will reimpose the kind of repressive rule they did when they were last in control. Thousands have rushed to flee the country ahead of the American withdrawal as a result.
The U.S. said more than 100,000 people have been safely evacuated from Kabul, but thousands more are struggling to leave in one of history’s largest airlifts.
The White House said Friday morning that 8,500 evacuees had been flown out aboard U.S. military aircraft in the previous 24 hours, along with about 4,000 people on coalition flights. That was about the same total as the day before the attacks.
Outside the airport, Afghans acknowledged that going to the airport was risky — but said they had few choices.
“Believe me, I think that an explosion will happen any second or minute, God is my witness, but we have lots of challenges in our lives, that is why we take the risk to come here and we overcome fear,” said Ahmadullah Herawi.
Many others will try to escape over land borders. The U.N. refugee agency said a half-million people or more could flee in a worst-case scenario in the coming months.
But chances to help those hoping to join the evacuation are fading fast. More European allies and other nations were ending their airlifts Friday, in part to give the U.S. time to wrap up its own operations and get 5,000 of its troops out by Tuesday.
The Taliban have said they will allow Afghans to leave via commercial flights after the U.S. withdrawal, but it remains unclear which airlines would return to an airport controlled by the militants.
Untold numbers of Afghans, especially ones who had worked with the U.S. and other Western countries, are now in hiding, fearing retaliation despite the group’s offer of full amnesty.
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 required women to be accompanied by a male relative when they left home, banned television and music, and held public executions.
Despite the promises, Afghans in Kabul and elsewhere have reported that some Taliban members are barring girls from attending school and going door to door in search of people who worked with Western forces.
US presses on with evacuations despite fears of more attacks
One hopes it remains so and improves in the future.
"On the morning after the attack, the Taliban used a pickup truck full of fighters and three captured Humvees to set up a barrier 500 meters (1,600 feet) from the airport, holding the crowds farther back from the U.S. troops at the gates than before.
U.S. military officials said that some gates were closed and other security measures put in place. They said there were tighter restrictions at Taliban checkpoints and fewer people around the gates. The military said it had also asked the Taliban to close certain roads because of the possibility of suicide bombers in vehicles."
US forces keep up Kabul airlift under threat of more attacks
One wonders why there wasn't a safe distance arranged previously. Good to see both working together.
Afghanistan live news: US carries out drone strike against Islamic State; American citizens warned to leave Kabul airport gates ‘immediately’
US warns citizens to leave airport gates and not to travel to airport; US drone strike killed Islamic State member, no civilians
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LIVE Updated 5m ago
Afghanistan live news: US carries out drone strike against Islamic State; American citizens warned to leave Kabul airport gates ‘immediately’ | World news | The Guardian
Afghanistan: US drone strike 'kills Isis-K planner'
Published59 minutes ago
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The US military says it believes it has killed a planner for a branch of the Islamic State (IS) group in a drone strike in eastern Afghanistan.
The suspected member of the IS-K group was targeted in Nangahar Province.
IS-K said it had carried out an attack outside Kabul airport on Thursday that may have killed as many as 170 people, including 13 US troops.
A mass airlift has been under way at the airport since Taliban militants overran the capital this month.
In the past two weeks, more than 100,000 people are believed to have been evacuated, with the deadline set by the US for its forces to leave Afghanistan expiring on Tuesday.
President Joe Biden promised on Friday to hunt down the jihadists behind Thursday's suicide bombing.
IS-K, or Islamic State Khorasan Province, is the most extreme and violent of all the jihadist militant groups in Afghanistan.
Read more
Afghanistan: US drone strike '''kills Isis-K planner''' - BBC News
Meanwhile, THE LORD continues to include the regional actors.
Telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan
Telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan • President of Russia
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Telephone conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi • President of Russia
Telephone conversation with President of China Xi Jinping
Telephone conversation with President of China Xi Jinping • President of Russia....
US strikes IS target in Afghanistan and warns of airport threat | Afghanistan | The GuardianQuote:
The US has conducted a drone strike against an Islamic State target in Afghanistan on Saturday, as the airlift of those desperate to flee moved into its fraught final stages with fresh terror attack warnings and encroaching Taliban forces primed to take over the Kabul airport.
US troops overseeing the evacuation have been forced into closer security cooperation with the Taliban to prevent any repeat of a suicide bombing that killed scores of civilians crowded around one of the airport’s main access gates, and 13 American troops.
Afghanistan live news: US carries out drone strike against Islamic State; American citizens warned to leave Kabul airport gates ‘immediately’
The attack was claimed by a regional chapter of the Islamic State – known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) – and the Pentagon announced it had carried out a drone attack on a “planner” from the jihadist group in eastern Afghanistan.
“Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties,” the US military said in a statement.
US Central Command said the airstrike took place in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul and bordering Pakistan. It did not say whether the target was connected with the airport attack.
The White House said the next few days are likely to be the most dangerous as evacuations continue ahead of looming deadline for the withdrawal of US forces.
Just before details of the airstrike targeting Islamic State were made public, the US embassy in Kabul issued a fresh warning over security threats at the airport and called on US citizens at the gates to “leave immediately”.
It follows Pentagon spokesman John Kirby earlier saying the US believes there are still “specific, credible” threats against the airport.
“We certainly are prepared and would expect future attempts,” Kirby told reporters in Washington. “We’re monitoring these threats, very, very specifically, virtually in real time.”
US and allied forces are racing to complete evacuations of their citizens and vulnerable Afghans and to withdraw from the country by the Tuesday deadline set by the US president, Joe Biden, after two decades of American military presence there.
The Pentagon said the US has taken about 111,000 people out of Afghanistan in the past two weeks.
While some have been evacuated, many are still seeking to get out. Throngs of people have gathered outside the airport to try to get on to evacuation flights since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan on 15 August, although on Friday, Taliban guards stopped people from approaching.
The Islamic State affiliate that claimed responsibility for Thursday’s bombing appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2014 and later made inroads into other areas, particularly the north.
The group is an enemy of the Islamist Taliban as well as the west. The Pentagon said Thursday’s attack was carried out by one suicide bomber at an airport gate, not two as it had earlier stated.
Biden said earlier he had ordered the Pentagon to plan how to strike ISKP. A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the drone strike was against an Islamic State militant planning attacks.
A reaper drone, which took off from the Middle East, struck the militant while he was in a car with an Islamic State associate, the official said. Both are believed to have been killed, the official added.
A senior Taliban commander said some ISKP members had been arrested in connection with the Kabul attack. “They are being interrogated by our intelligence team,” the commander said.
Who profits from the Kabul suicide bombing?
ISIS-Khorasan aims to prove to Afghans and to the outside world that the Taliban cannot secure the capital
by Pepe Escobar August 27, 2021
"The horrific Kabul suicide bombing introduces an extra vector in an already incandescent situation: It aims to prove, to Afghans and to the outside world, that the nascent Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is incapable of securing the capital.
As it stands, at least 103 people – 90 Afghans (including at least 28 Taliban) and 13 American servicemen – were killed and at least 1,300 injured, according to the Afghan Health Ministry.
Responsibility for the bombing came via a statement on the Telegram channel of Amaq Media, the official Islamic State (ISIS) news agency. This means it came from centralized ISIS command, even as the perpetrators were members of ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K.
Presuming to inherit the historical and cultural weight of ancient Central Asian lands that from the time of imperial Persia stretched all the way to the western Himalayas, that spin-off defiles the name of Khorasan.
The suicide bomber who carried out “the martyrdom operation near Kabul airport” was identified as one Abdul Rahman al-Logari. That would suggest he’s an Afghan, from nearby Logar province. And that would also suggest that the bombing may have been organized by an ISIS-Khorasan sleeper cell. Sophisticated electronic analysis of their communications would be able to prove it – tools that the Taliban don’t have.
The way social media-savvy ISIS chose to spin the carnage deserves careful scrutiny. The statement on Amaq Media blasts the Taliban for being “in a partnership” with the US military in the evacuation of “spies.”
It mocks the “security measures imposed by the American forces and the Taliban militia in the capital Kabul,” as its “martyr” was able to reach “a distance of no less than five meters from the American forces, who were supervising the procedures.”
So it’s clear that the newly reborn Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the former occupying power are facing the same enemy. ISIS-Khorasan comprises a bunch of fanatics, termed takfiris because they define fellow Muslims – in this case the Taliban – as “apostates.”
Founded in 2015 by emigré jihadis dispatched to southwest Pakistan, ISIS-K is a dodgy beast. Its current head is one Shahab al-Mujahir, who was a mid-level commander of the Haqqani network headquartered in North Waziristan in the Pakistani tribal areas, itself a collection of disparate mujahideen and would-be jihadis under the family umbrella.
Washington branded the Haqqani network as a terrorist organization way back in 2010, and treats several members as global terrorists, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the family after the death of the founder Jalaluddin.
Up to now, Sirajuddin was the Taliban deputy leader for the eastern provinces – on the same level with Mullah Baradar, the head of the political office in Doha, who was actually released from Guantanamo in 2014.
Crucially, Sirajuddin’s uncle, Khalil Haqqani, formerly in charge of the network’s foreign financing,is now in charge of Kabul security and working as a diplomat 24/7.
The previous ISIS-K leaders were snuffed out by US airstrikes in 2015 and 2016. ISIS-K started to become a real destabilizing force in 2020 when the regrouped band attacked Kabul University, a Doctor Without Borders maternity ward, the Presidential palace and the airport.
NATO intel picked up by a UN report attributes a maximum of 2,200 jihadis to ISIS-K, split into small cells. Significantly, the absolute majority are non-Afghans: Iraqis, Saudis, Kuwaitis, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and Uighurs.
The real danger is that ISIS-K works as a sort of magnet for all manners of disgruntled former Taliban or discombobulated regional warlords with nowhere to go.
The perfect soft target
The civilian commotion these past few days around Kabul airport was the perfect soft target for trademark ISIS carnage.
Zabihullah Mujahid – the new Taliban minister of information in Kabul, who in that capacity talks to global media every day – is the one who actually warned NATO members about an imminent ISIS-K suicide bombing. Brussels diplomats confirmed it.
In parallel, it’s no secret among intel circles in Eurasia that ISIS-K has become disproportionally more powerful since 2020 because of a transportation ratline from Idlib, in Syria, to eastern Afghanistan, informally known in spook talk as Daesh Airlines.
Moscow and Tehran, even at very high diplomatic levels, have squarely blamed the US-UK axis as the key facilitators. Even the BBC reported in late 2017 on hundreds of ISIS jihadis given safe passage out of Raqqa, and out of Syria, right in front of the Americans.
The Kabul bombing took place after two very significant events.
The first one was Mujahid’s claim during an American NBC News interview earlier this week that there is “no proof” Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11.
This means the Taliban have already started a campaign to disconnect themselves from the “terrorist” label associated with 9/11. The next step may involve arguing that the execution of 9/11 was set up in Hamburg, the operational details coordinated from two apartments in New Jersey.
Nothing to do with Afghans. And everything staying within the parameters of the official narrative – but that’s another immensely complicated story.
The Taliban will need to show that “terrorism” has been all about their lethal enemy, ISIS, and way beyond old school al-Qaeda, which they harbored up to 2001. But why should they be shy about making such claims? After all, the United States rehabilitated Jabhat Al-Nusra – or al-Qaeda in Syria – as “moderate rebels.”
The origin of ISIS is incandescent material. ISIS was spawned in Iraq prison camps, its core made of Iraqis, their military skills derived from ex-officers in Saddam’s army, a wild bunch fired way back in 2003 by Paul Bremmer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
ISIS-K duly carries the work of ISIS from Southwest Asia to the crossroads of Central and South Asia in Afghanistan. There’s no credible evidence that ISIS-K has ties with Pakistani military intel.
On the contrary: ISIS-K is loosely aligned with the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, Islamabad’s mortal enemy. TTP’s agenda has nothing to do with the moderate Mullah Baradar-led Afghan Taliban who participated in the Doha process.
SCO to the rescue
The other significant event tied to the Kabul bombing was that it took place only one day after yet another phone call between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
The Kremlin stressed the pair’s “readiness to step up efforts to combat threats of terrorism and drug trafficking coming from the territory of Afghanistan”; the “importance of establishing peace”; and “preventing the spread of instability to adjacent regions.”
And that led to the clincher: They jointly committed to “make the most of the potential” of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was founded 20 years ago as the “Shanghai Five”, even before 9/11, to fight “terrorism, separatism and extremism.”
The SCO summit is next month in Dushanbe – when Iran, most certainly, will be admitted as a full member. The Kabul bombing offers the SCO the opportunity to forcefully step up.
Whichever complex tribal coalition is formed to govern the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, it will be intertwined with the full apparatus of regional economic and security cooperation, led by the three main actors of Eurasia integration: Russia, China and Iran.
The record shows Moscow has all that it takes to help the Islamic Emirate against ISIS-K in Afghanistan. After all, the Russians flushed ISIS out of all significant parts of Syria and confined them to the Idlib cauldron.
In the end, no one aside from ISIS wants a terrorized Afghanistan, just as no one wants a civil war in Afghanistan. So the order of business indicates not only an SCO-led frontal fight against existing ISIS-K terror cells in Afghanistan but also an integrated campaign to drain any potential social base for the takfiris in Central and South Asia."
Who profits from the Kabul suicide bombing? - Asia Times
What a fucking stupid question.
The answer is Islamic State.Quote:
Who profits from the Kabul suicide bombing?
One video where a member of Islamic State of Afghanistan speaks with a Sussex acent.
https://vk.com/video648944168_456239185
Significant numbers of those killed were shot dead by US forces
BBC news reorters tweet:
https://twitter.com/SecKermani/statu...17279859224579
Secunder Kermani @SecKermani
- 7:21 UTC · Aug 28, 2021
"Our report from last night on the awful ISIS attack outside Kabul airport as families still search Kabul's morgues for their loved ones..
Many we spoke to, including eyewitnesses, said significant numbers of those killed were shot dead by US forces in the panic after the blast"
Embedded video