Afghan government collapse.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/at-the-pentagon-us-military-officials-bitter-as-they-watch-chaos-in-kabul/ar-AANouoi

Biden decided in mid-April that all US troops must be out of Afghanistan by September 11, though he later moved that date up to August 21.
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As soon as Biden announced the withdrawal, the Pentagon said it was making preparations for a mass evacuation.

But by mid-June the administration still did not consider an evacuation necessary and favored the granting of special visas -- a process that can take up to two years. 

It was only at the end of June that the White House raised the possibility of evacuating the Afghan interpreters before the end of the military withdrawal, and asked for the Pentagon's help.

More on this fiasco here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/17/biden-afghan-evacuation-505590

And in late July, two weeks before the Taliban captured their first provincial capital, a coalition of groups that work with special visa applicants wrote multiple emails to the State Department’s Afghanistan Task Force offering their assistance. Those emails were never returned.

These instances, detailed to POLITICO by five U.S. officials and people familiar with the situation, are indicative of how the administration wasted precious time and failed to prepare to evacuate thousands in danger as the Taliban plotted their comeback. Flaws in the planning and execution of the withdrawal have led to wrenching scenes of Afghans clinging to U.S. military cargo planes as they race out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where President Joe Biden has dispatched up to 7,000 troops to handle the chaos.
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“They were sitting on their hands,” said a congressional aide who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. “They only started surging three to four weeks ago.” In fact, it was only on Saturday that the State Department task force approached those same activist organizations and sought their help to fill out a list with names of people needing relocation.

It was virtually the same story in my own country. Our leaders love the big talk about how valued the Afghan support staff is and how they want them get all out, but at the end of the day they're still just... Afghans.

[Middle-aged Europe]

So much for the "general amnesty" that was declared the day before yesterday. Every assurance the Taliban give is a lie.

Taliban 'carrying out highly organised manhunt'

The Taliban are carrying out a highly-organised door-to-door hunt for people on their wanted list, says the head of the group providing intelligence to the UN.

"What we have seen is that the Taliban, in advance of moving into all major cities in Afghanistan, not just Kabul, is that they have a more advanced intelligence system," Christian Nellemann, of the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses, told the BBC.

"They have lists of individuals and even within the very first hours of moving into Kabul they began a search of former government employees - especially in intelligence services and the special forces units."

He said that, not only could this lead to mass executions, but also a "mass revealing of our methods and the intelligence networks that the West has provided. So this could undermine severely a number of our Western intelligence services."

As we reported earlier, the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses’ report to the UN also said the Taliban are recruiting new informer networks to collaborate with their regime.

Taliban kill relative of journalist

Taliban militants have shot dead a relative of a journalist they were hunting and seriously injured another.

The militants were carrying out a house-to-house search in the western city of Herat to try to find the journalist from Deutsche Welle, who now works in Germany.

Other relatives managed to escape and are now on the run.

"The killing of a close relative of one of our editors by the Taliban in Herat yesterday is inconceivably tragic, and testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves," DW's director general, Peter Limbourg said.

It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organised searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces. We are running out of time!"

The Taliban have raided the homes of at least three DW journalists in recent weeks.

The news of the killing comes as a UN document said the Taliban are intensifying their hunt for people who worked for and collaborated with Nato and US forces.

Source: BBC

[Middle-aged Europe]

German opinion poll on the Afghanistan mission of the German military (2001-21), conducted August 17-18.





Mission was a mistake from the start: 40%
Mission and withdrawal were correct decisions: 10%
Mission was the right thing to do, but should have been continued: 41%

[Middle-aged Europe]

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

[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.

[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)

[Middle-aged Europe]

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

[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

[Middle-aged Europe]

Taliban say the evacuations must end on August 31. This is probably in response to the Biden administration, the British governmet and numerous EU officials and EU governments saying that the evacuations probably won't by concluded by the end of this month and more time is needed.

Taliban will not extend evacuation deadline

The Taliban will not extend the 31 August deadline for the current evacuation mission, a spokesman has said.

The 31st was a red line, Suhail Shaheen said. He said President Biden had said troops would be out by that date, and extending it meant extending Afghanistan's occupation. He warned of consequences if that were to change.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been expected to use an emergency G7 meeting on Tuesday to ask President Biden to delay the US troop withdrawal to allow more time for evacuations from Kabul airport.

Thousands of Afghans and foreign nationals are still scrambling to get on flights out of the country.

Source: BBC

[Middle-aged Europe]

Update on that:

The Taliban are urging Afghan people to stay and rebuild their country but will not stand in the way of those who want to leave, if they have the correct documentation, a spokesman has told the BBC.

Suhail Shaheen said people could still leave on commercial flights after the deadline for foreign troops to leave by 31 August.

He said: "We are not putting hurdles in their way if they have a passport issued - they can go on commercial flights at any time. We want them to stay in the country but if they intend to go, they can... if they have the proper documents."

But he stressed there would be "consequences" if the foreign forces stayed beyond 31 August. He did not elaborate on what this would mean, saying only that the Taliban leadership would decide.

G7 members will meet virtually tomorrow to discuss whether to try to extend the 31 August deadline amid chaotic scenes at Kabul airport.

"We are not putting hurdles in their way if they have a passport issued - they can go on commercial flights at any time." seems like a blatant lie to me.

[Middle-aged Europe]

With so much of the US and European Media focusing on the airport evacuations from Kabul, there are various other stories which have not received much attention.

As I posted several days ago Karzai was involved with conversations with the Taliban about a future Government.

This report from earlier today from The New York Times helps possibly shed some light on what might have been going on behind the scenes:

Forced to leave his home, former President Hamid Karzai remains in Kabul despite the risks.

Last week, former President Hamid Karzai stood outside his home in Kabul to record a video message, surrounded by his daughters, and said that he would stay in the Afghan capital with his family to try to coordinate with the Taliban for a peaceful transition.

But even as he has tried to position himself as a mediator at this crucial moment, his ability to play that role is tenuous. By the time Mr. Karzai appeared in a second video — recorded in the garden of the former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah — he appeared less confident and his speech was stilted. Mr. Abdullah stood beside him in silence.

Mr. Karzai found refuge with Mr. Abdullah, two Afghan officials said on Monday, after the Taliban disarmed his guards and took over security of his compound several days ago.

....

Saad Mohseni, the director general of MOBY Media Group, which owns the independent news channel Tolo TV, said that he had been in touch with Mr. Karzai and Mr. Abdullah and that his impression was that the meetings between the Taliban and the former leaders were little more than show.

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“We are very worried,” Mr. Hyatt said, noting that he had learned the circumstances of the takeover of Mr. Karzai’s home from people still in Kabul. An aide to Mr. Abdullah reached by telephone said that he was not available to speak to the news media.

...

Taliban are interested in window dressing, nothing more.

[Middle-aged Europe]

As a "temporary" measure, the Taliban have ordered all working women to stay at home:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58315413

[Middle-aged Europe]

Germany's final evacuation flight has left Kabul. German citizens or former local employees who haven't been evacuated yet are being left behind or must hope that the Taliban will let them leave on a commercial flight.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Afghanistan: Female journalist who interviewed Taliban flees country

Beheshta Arghand, an anchor for Tolo News, made headlines when she interviewed the Taliban just days after they took control of Afghanistan.

Two weeks later, she has fled the country amid fears for her life.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-58401364

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Taliban have announced the new government for Afghanistan. Despite previous assurances that it would be an "inclusive" cabinet in which all relevant groups of Afghan society are represented, it is now - huge surprise - an all-male, all-Taliban one:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58484155

The new interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is also wanted by the FBI as a terrorist with a reward of up to ten million dollars.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Women protest again in Kabul against new all-male government:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58490819

[Middle-aged Europe]

Taliban purge incoming?

Afghanistan: Taliban leaders in bust-up at presidential palace, sources say

A major row broke out between leaders of the Taliban just days after they set up a new government in Afghanistan, senior Taliban officials told the BBC.

Supporters of two rival factions reportedly brawled at the presidential palace in the capital Kabul.

The argument appeared to centre on who did the most to secure victory over the US, and how power was divided up in the new cabinet.

The Taliban have officially denied the reports.

The group seized control of Afghanistan last month, and have since declared the country an "Islamic Emirate". Their new interim cabinet is entirely male and made up of senior Taliban figures, some of whom are notorious for attacks on US forces over the past two decades.

The dispute came to light after a Taliban co-founder, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, disappeared from view for several days.

...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58560923

[Middle-aged Europe]

Taliban are being Taliban

Afghanistan: Girls excluded as Afghan secondary schools reopen

The Taliban have excluded girls from Afghan secondary schools, after they ordered only boys and male teachers to return to the classroom.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58607816

[Middle-aged Europe]

Taliban say they're gonna bring back executions and amputations, although as a concession they won't necessarily be held in public anymore:

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/24/1040339286/taliban-official-says-strict-punishment-and-executions-will-return