Afghan government collapse.

[NOVA Green]

Afghan authorities have confirmed that a young footballer fell to his death after trying to stow away on a US military plane leaving Kabul airport.

Zaki Anwari, 19, had played for Afghanistan's national youth team.

Further details of when he died have not been disclosed.

Since the Taliban's recapture of Afghanistan, thousands of people have scrambled to Kabul's airport as Western countries rush to evacuate their citizens and Afghan colleagues.

Images emerged on Monday showing hundreds of people running alongside a US air force plane as it moved down a runway. Some people were seen clinging to its side.

Local media reports said that at least two people fell to their deaths after it took off. The US air force has also confirmed that human remains were found in the landing gear of an aircraft after it arrived in Qatar.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58272740

Sad story and I read it earlier today.

The part that tripped me up from the quote: "Afghan authorities confirmed...."

Who are the authorities considering there isn't a real Government in any sense of the word yet, despite Taliban military control over most of the country?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

https://twitter.com/Oriana0214/status/1428445114762997765

Look, we just need a couple of billion people to pay that and the Afghanistan war will have paid for itself.

[Flyersfan232]

should allowed the restoration of  the monarchy that had70% supported

[Flyersfan232]

This is a complete fiasco caused entirely by the Biden Administrations poor policies and inability to plan for the withdrawal. The evacuation of interprets and other local staff should have started much earlier and the embassy should have been massively scaled down .I am normally a fan of his administration's policies but he has completely botched the withdrawal process here. There was no need for chaos at the airport or for people to be clutching to the wings of taking off planes, he needs to take responsibility and publicaly outline a plan to evacuate everyone from the aiport. He should also address the nation tonight instead of waiting and take some actual responsibility, suspend the pointless paperwork and formalities.

There was no need for this to become a Saigon but his poor policies have caused it.

I wouldn’t fully blame Joe Biden for the downfall of Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban. Really I think the blame should be placed on either Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan (for supporting the Taliban during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan War) or Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, or David Ben-Gurion (for planning out and executing the 1953 Iranian coup, which is the direct contributor to al US interventions in the Middle East).

Mohammed Daoud Khan is who to blame

[Flyersfan232]

Macron says EU setting up initiative to thwart arrival of Afghan refugees

French president Emmanuel Macron said the European Union would be setting up an initiative to thwart the expected arrivals of refugees from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.

“We must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows that would endanger the migrants and risk encouraging trafficking of all kinds,” he said in a televised statement.

He said the response from France, Germany and other EU countries would be “robust, coordinated and united” and would target smuggling rings.

If the EU doesn't want Afghan refugees there, then they're welcome to deploy their own forces to Afghanistan to repel the Taliban and prop up Ghani's government indefinitely.

you rather a president le pen and another right wing populist wave?

[Flyersfan232]

So, will there be a new Northern Alliance?

should restore the monarchy

[Flyersfan232]

I hope that once the last plane is evacuated from Kabul that we de facto recognize the Panshjir enclave and ideally even enforce a 1990s Iraq type No Fly Zone around that area.

  Panshjir independence?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

So, will there be a new Northern Alliance?

should restore the monarchy

I doubt the Afghans want someone who has lived in the DC area for the last 48 years.

[Mr. Morden]

More on the botched evacuation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/us/politics/afghanistan-visas-refugees.html

Officials also echoed refugee advocates, who accused the State Department of having been caught flat-footed in processing the special immigrant visas for Afghans — even though President Biden announced in April that the American military would be leaving by the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that led to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

“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. This was avoidable, and we’re at the 11th hour now.”
.
.
.
Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, said even Afghans who had been vetted and told to come to the airport were unable to get past U.S. troops at the airport’s gate. He called it “inexcusable” that the State Department and Pentagon were not coordinating better to ensure “that whoever the U.S. government invites will be recognized and allowed in by people at the gates who know what they’re doing.”

[Middle-aged Europe]

It is strange to see these types of poll numbers in 2021 from Germany and am curious if we have any idea of regional breakdowns, party positions on the former and current German role within Afghanistan.

Not for this poll apparently, but it is relatively safe to assume that opposition to the German military engagement would the highest among Left and AfD supporters. Highest support probably among CDU/CSU, Greens, and SPD. FDP somewhere in between.

[Cassius]

I mean the problem with making evacuation part of the withdrawal would have been that doing so would have been to, effectively, admit that the US fully expected the Afghan government to collapse very quickly (and probably would have speeded up the collapse). Wouldn’t have been great Optics^TM (and whilst it’s a fair comment to say ‘screw the Optics^TM’, Optics^TM unfortunately plays a massive role in these things).

[Middle-aged Europe]

I mean the problem with making evacuation part of the withdrawal would have been that doing so would have been to, effectively, admit that the US fully expected the Afghan government to collapse very quickly (and probably would have speeded up the collapse). Wouldn’t have been great Optics^TM (and whilst it’s a fair comment to say ‘screw the Optics^TM’, Optics^TM unfortunately plays a massive role in these things).

That is probably true, unfortunately.

Yesterday, German news media had reported about yet another report by our foreign intelligence service, this time from July this year. Bottomline of the July report was that the actual force strength of the Afghan military was estimated to be at 90,000 (and not 300,000), with the number of combat ready troops placed as low as 25,000.

(" Im Juli dann bezifferte der Dienst die Erosion in Zahlen. Von 300.000 Soldaten auf dem Papier, so die Warnung, existierten nur maximal 90.000, kampfbereit seien nur rund 25.000." -> https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afghanistan-warum-das-fruehwarnsystem-des-bnd-versagte-a-0dc8a986-c3d9-463c-9539-0c62767a3202)

[CumbrianLefty]

This is a complete fiasco caused entirely by the Biden Administrations poor policies and inability to plan for the withdrawal. The evacuation of interprets and other local staff should have started much earlier and the embassy should have been massively scaled down .I am normally a fan of his administration's policies but he has completely botched the withdrawal process here. There was no need for chaos at the airport or for people to be clutching to the wings of taking off planes, he needs to take responsibility and publicaly outline a plan to evacuate everyone from the aiport. He should also address the nation tonight instead of waiting and take some actual responsibility, suspend the pointless paperwork and formalities.

There was no need for this to become a Saigon but his poor policies have caused it.

I wouldn’t fully blame Joe Biden for the downfall of Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban. Really I think the blame should be placed on either Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan (for supporting the Taliban during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan War) or Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, or David Ben-Gurion (for planning out and executing the 1953 Iranian coup, which is the direct contributor to al US interventions in the Middle East).

Mohammed Daoud Khan is who to blame

Some truth in that, probably.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

I mean the problem with making evacuation part of the withdrawal would have been that doing so would have been to, effectively, admit that the US fully expected the Afghan government to collapse very quickly (and probably would have speeded up the collapse). Wouldn’t have been great Optics^TM (and whilst it’s a fair comment to say ‘screw the Optics^TM’, Optics^TM unfortunately plays a massive role in these things).

As the article points out the main problem was a slow processing of visas. Per NyT they had a backlog of 17,000 applications on Jan 20th and has been processing 100 a week, that is it would take 3 years just to process the backlog, even assuming they wouldn't get any new during this time.

With that in mind, "making evacuation part of the withdrawal" probably refers to hugely speeding up the vetting process. And to keeping enough military, until the evacuation is done. It seems unlikely, it would contribute to collapsing, nor to bad Optics^TM.

Fairly clear imo, it has never been about Optics^TM, just bad judgement re:situation in Afghanistan. Plus that nor Biden, nor Trump are shy about that [the situation in] ME/Afghanistan is not anything they give a f**k.

[Splash]

https://twitter.com/MSharif1990/status/1428755292171481088

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://www.twitter.com/AirMobilityCmd/status/1428700131524845569

[Illiniwek]

https://www.twitter.com/AirMobilityCmd/status/1428700131524845569

Still absolute chaos, but I am happy to see us trying to get as many of these people out as possible.

[Middle-aged Europe]

As SPIEGEL reports, German military is about to become more proactive in Kabul.

So far they only flew out people who were already at the airport. But this evening the German contingent is supplemented with two Airbus H145M helicopters from the KSK (Special Forces Command). The purpose is to extract people from all over the Kabul area who can't make it to the airport on their own. Advantage of the rather light H145M is that they're able to land in the streets or on roofs.

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afghanistan-ksk-helikopter-ueber-taliban-gebiet-a-bcfee128-2429-4b1e-956e-86efb9b6da47

[AncestralDemocrat.]

https://twitter.com/MSharif1990/status/1428755292171481088?s=19

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/MSharif1990/status/1428755292171481088?s=19

Newsweek is reporting the number could be as high as (3) / (15) districts of Baghlan Province:

Resistance fighters in Afghanistan have recaptured three areas in the country's Baghlan province from the Taliban, according to reports on Friday, as locals fight back against the recent takeover.

Anti-Taliban forces reportedly took back control of the Banu, Pol-e-Hesar and De Salah districts in Baghlan province, while around 60 Taliban fighters were killed or injured in the fighting.

https://www.newsweek.com/anti-taliban-resistance-recaptures-multiple-areas-afghans-fight-back-1621437

It should also be noted that the province is majority Ethnic Tajik and Hazara, as well as partially adjacent to Panjshir Province, both of which could have future significance from both a political and military perspective with Taliban forces much more stretched out as they try to garrison large cities where historically they have had much less support than in many rural areas within the country.

[Storr]

https://www.twitter.com/AirMobilityCmd/status/1428700131524845569

823?? That's incredible (if not insane).

[NOVA Green]

https://www.twitter.com/AirMobilityCmd/status/1428700131524845569

823?? That's incredible (if not insane).

Yeah, these planes are work-horses with a load something like the following:

Mission

The C-17 Globemaster III is the most flexible cargo aircraft to enter the airlift force. The C-17 is capable of rapid strategic delivery of troops and all types of cargo to main operating bases or directly to forward bases in the deployment area. The aircraft can perform tactical airlift and airdrop missions and can transport litters and ambulatory patients during aeromedical evacuations. The inherent flexibility and performance of the C-17 force improve the ability of the total airlift system to fulfill the worldwide air mobility requirements of the United States.

The ultimate measure of airlift effectiveness is the ability to rapidly project and sustain an effective combat force close to a potential battle area. Threats to U.S. interests have changed in recent years, and the size and weight of U.S.-mechanized firepower and equipment have grown in response to improved capabilities of potential adversaries. This trend has significantly increased air mobility requirements, particularly in the area of large or heavy outsize cargo. As a result, newer and more flexible airlift aircraft are needed to meet potential armed contingencies, peacekeeping or humanitarian missions worldwide. The C-17 is capable of meeting today's demanding airlift missions.

Load: 102 troops/paratroops; 36 litter and 54 ambulatory patients and attendants; 170,900 pounds (77,519 kilograms) of cargo (18 pallet positions)

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/1529726/c-17-globemaster-iii/

[NOVA Green]

Low hanging fruit and most of you who post have likely already seen this report (Still we have tons of viewers and few posters so some of them might not have seen this), but still note-worthy in terms of the extension of US Military Evacuations from outside of the secured airport in Kabul:

The U.S. military rescued 169 Americans from a hotel near Kabul airport on Thursday in an expansion of the U.S. military’s operation to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan after the fall of the Kabul government to the Taliban.

The Americans were at the Baron Hotel, which is near the airport, a U.S. official familiar with the situation said. The official said the operation, carried out with Chinook helicopter flights, was the only Defense Department mission of its kind so far.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/20/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/#link-PNKGXLIH2VCX5IF33TF7NIRRSQ

[NOVA Green]

Another story which hasn't really gotten any coverage on this thread has to do with not only the US Supplied weapons in which the Taliban seized from ANA bases, but ALSO which weapons might have ended up in the hands of the current Anti-Taliban Military Forces (Not including ISIS / Daesh in the mix).

A few highlights for those of you not able to get behind the paywall, which I can do as a paid subscriber:

As the Taliban swept into power across Afghanistan, it captured many millions, perhaps billions, of dollars worth of U.S. military equipment that had once belonged to Afghan forces.

Footage from areas captured by the militant group shows bedraggled but celebratory fighters in control of U.S.-made guns, armored vehicles and even Blackhawk helicopters and drones. Beyond the flashy hardware, experts are also concerned that the extremist group would now be in charge of sophisticated technology, including biometric devices used by the U.S. military to identify Afghans who assisted Americans and allies.


...

Before it was captured by the Taliban, the Afghan air force had more than 40 operational U.S.-made MD-530 helicopters, the report said, and more than 30 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. There were also more than 23 usable A-29 Super Tucano attack planes, some of which had been upgraded to drop laser-guided bombs.

...

Open source analysts Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans have tracked videos and images released by forces loyal to the insurgents and recorded over 30 pieces of equipment that now belongs to what they dubbed the “Taliban Air Force,” ranging from at least one A-29 Super Tucano to seven Insitu ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicles — drones — made by Boeing.

Four Blackhawk helicopters, if not more, appeared to be in Taliban control. At a cost of $10 million each, it represents an expensive catch.

....

Some of the more expensive U.S. equipment appear to have been disabled or removed by departing Afghan officials and forces.

Mitzer said that video evidence showed that a number of aircraft, including three Blackhawk helicopters, had been taken to Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, where anti-Taliban forces have gathered under the leadership of Vice President Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud, the son of late Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Uzbekistan claimed on Monday that around 22 planes and 24 helicopters from Afghanistan had been forced to land after entering Uzbek airspace. Dempsey said that satellite imagery supported these claims, which if accurate would represent around a quarter of all Afghan Air Force aircraft.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/20/us-weapons-taliban-afghanistan/

I don't want to exceed quote % on the article, but definitely worth a look for those of you who have a limited number of free WP articles per month interested in the topic.

[AncestralDemocrat.]

https://twitter.com/MSharif1990/status/1428755292171481088?s=19

Newsweek is reporting the number could be as high as (3) / (15) districts of Baghlan Province:

Resistance fighters in Afghanistan have recaptured three areas in the country's Baghlan province from the Taliban, according to reports on Friday, as locals fight back against the recent takeover.

Anti-Taliban forces reportedly took back control of the Banu, Pol-e-Hesar and De Salah districts in Baghlan province, while around 60 Taliban fighters were killed or injured in the fighting.

https://www.newsweek.com/anti-taliban-resistance-recaptures-multiple-areas-afghans-fight-back-1621437

It should also be noted that the province is majority Ethnic Tajik and Hazara, as well as partially adjacent to Panjshir Province, both of which could have future significance from both a political and military perspective with Taliban forces much more stretched out as they try to garrison large cities where historically they have had much less support than in many rural areas within the country.

Pro Taliban accounts on social media have begun to share a propaganda message confirming the seizures by "betrayers" and that 15 "Mujahideen" were martyred.. so the 60+ number is likely correct.