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Old 08-26-2021, 12:59 PM
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Angry Officials: At least 60 Afghans, 12 US troops killed in airport attack in Afghanistan

Officials: At least 60 Afghans, 12 US troops killed in airport attack in Afghanistan
By: The Associated Press & Channel 7 news Miami - 08-26-21
Re: https://wsvn.com/news/us-world/offic...n-afghanistan/

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan official says at least 60 Afghans were killed and another 143 were wounded in the attack outside Kabul airport. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media. U.S. officials say 12 military service members were also killed in the attack outside the airport.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 22 people were killed and dozens wounded.

The dead include 11 Marines and one Navy medic, according to two U.S. officials. They said another 12 service members were wounded and warned the toll could grow.

One of the bombers struck people standing knee-deep in a wastewater canal under the sweltering sun, throwing bodies into the fetid water. Those who moments earlier had hoped to get on flights out could be seen carrying the wounded to ambulances in a daze, their own clothes darkened with blood.

A U.S. official said the complex attack was believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State group. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan is far more radical than the Taliban, who recently took control of the country in a lightning blitz and condemned the attack.

Western officials had warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport, but that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans desperate to escape the country in the last few days of an American-led evacuation before the U.S. officially ends its 20-year presence on Aug. 31.

Emergency, an Italian charity that operates hospitals in Afghanistan, said it had received at least 60 patients wounded in the airport attack, in addition to 10 who were dead when they arrived.

“Surgeons will be working into the night,” said Marco Puntin, the charity’s manager in Afghanistan. The wounded overflowed the triage zone into the physiotherapy area and more beds were being added, he said.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said there were casualties, including among members of the military, but gave no figure. He said one explosion was near an airport entrance and another was a short distance away by a hotel.

Even as the area was hit, evacuation flights continued to take off from Kabul airport.

Adam Khan was waiting nearby when he saw the first explosion outside what’s known as the Abbey gate. He said several people appeared to have been killed or wounded, including some who were maimed.

The second blast was at or near Baron Hotel, where many people, including Afghans, Britons and Americans, were told to gather in recent days before heading to the airport for evacuation.

A former Royal Marine who runs an animal shelter in Afghanistan says he and his staff were caught up in the aftermath of the blast near the airport.

“All of a sudden we heard gunshots and our vehicle was targeted, had our driver not turned around he would have been shot in the head by a man with an AK-47,” Paul “Pen” Farthing told Britain’s Press Association news agency.

Farthing is trying to get staff of his Nowzad charity out of Afghanistan, along with the group’s rescued animals.

He is among thousands trying to flee. Over the last week, the airport has been the scene of some of the most searing images of the chaotic end of America’s longest war and the Taliban’s takeover, as flight after flight took off carrying those who fear a return to the militants’ brutal rule. When the Taliban were last in power, they confined women largely to their home and widely imposed draconian restrictions.

Already, some countries have ended their evacuations and begun to withdraw their soldiers and diplomats, signaling the beginning of the end of one of history’s largest airlifts. The Taliban have insisted foreign troops must be out by America’s self-imposed deadline of Aug. 31 — and the evacuations must end then, too.

In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden spent much of the morning in the secure White House Situation Room where he was briefed on the explosions and conferred with his national security team and commanders on the ground in Kabul.

Overnight, warnings emerged from Western capitals about a threat from IS, which has seen its ranks boosted by the Taliban’s freeing of prisoners during its advance through Afghanistan.

Shortly before the attack, the acting U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Ross Wilson, said the security threat at the Kabul airport overnight was “clearly regarded as credible, as imminent, as compelling.” But in an interview with ABC News, he would not give details.

Late Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy warned citizens at three airport gates to leave immediately due to an unspecified security threat. Australia, Britain and New Zealand also advised their citizens Thursday not to go to the airport.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that any attack was imminent at the airport, where the group’s fighters have deployed and occasionally used heavy-handed tactics to control the crowds. After the attack, he appeared to shirk blame, noting the airport is controlled by U.S. troops.

Before the blast, the Taliban sprayed a water cannon at those gathered at one airport gate to try to drive the crowd away, as someone launched tear gas canisters elsewhere.

Nadia Sadat, a 27-year-old Afghan, carried her 2-year-old daughter with her outside the airport. She and her husband, who had worked with coalition forces, missed a call from a number they believed was the State Department and were trying to get into the airport without any luck. Her husband had pressed ahead in the crowd to try to get them inside.

“We have to find a way to evacuate because our lives are in danger,” Sadat said. “My husband received several threatening messages from unknown sources. We have no chance except escaping.”

Aman Karimi, 50, escorted his daughter and her family to the airport, fearful the Taliban would target her because of her husband’s work with NATO.

“The Taliban have already begun seeking those who have worked with NATO,” he said. “They are looking for them house-by-house at night.”

The Sunni extremists of IS, with links to the group’s more well-known affiliate in Syria and Iraq, have carried out a series of brutal attacks, mainly targeting Afghanistan’s Shiite Muslim minority, including a 2020 assault on a maternity hospital in Kabul in which they killed women and infants.

The Taliban have fought against Islamic State militants in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have wrested back control nearly 20 years after they were ousted in a U.S.-led invasion. The Americans went in following the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaida orchestrated while being sheltered by the group.

Amid the warnings and the pending American withdrawal, Canada ended its evacuations, and European nations halted or prepared to stop their own operations.

“The reality on the ground is the perimeter of the airport is closed. The Taliban have tightened the noose. It’s very, very difficult for anybody to get through at this point,” Canadian General Wayne Eyre, the country’s acting Chief of Defense Staff, said ahead of the attack.

Lt. Col. Georges Eiden, Luxembourg’s army representative in neighboring Pakistan, said that Friday would mark the official end for U.S. allies. But two Biden administration officials denied that was the case.

A third official said that the U.S. worked with its allies to coordinate each country’s departure, and some nations asked for more time and were granted it.

“Most depart later in the week,” he said, while adding that some were stopping operations Thursday. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.

Danish Defense Minister Trine Bramsen bluntly warned earlier: “It is no longer safe to fly in or out of Kabul.”

Denmark’s last flight has already departed, and Poland and Belgium have also announced the end of their evacuations. The Dutch government said it had been told by the U.S. to leave Thursday.

But Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said some planes would continue to fly.

“Evacuation operations in Kabul will not be wrapping up in 36 hours. We will continue to evacuate as many people as we can until the end of the mission,” he said in a tweet.

The Taliban have said they’ll allow Afghans to leave via commercial flights after the deadline next week, but it remains unclear which airlines would return to an airport controlled by the militants. Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said talks were underway between his country and the Taliban about allowing Turkish civilian experts to help run the facility.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Personal note:

a. We should have annihilated them 20 years ago. Their religious sect isn't worth the paper they write on.

b. They are cruel beyond reason. They mistreat their women and butcher those who disagree. They are butcher's & murder's.

c. Their Hollier than Hell ideals are perversions of some ungodly leader and his holy book of trespass.

d. It's inhumane and most religious ideologies would agree. It's Sadism at its best and needs to erased in its entirety.

e. They are devils in robes with cruelty as their guide.

f. It's perverted and ungodly and needs to be erased from this Earth - so as to rid us of their sickness.
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Boats
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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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  #2  
Old 08-27-2021, 05:00 AM
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Arrow Taliban leaders are back in charge in Afghanistan. Can they control their own army?

Taliban leaders are back in charge in Afghanistan. Can they control their own army?
By: Adam E. Casey, Dan Slater & Jean Lachapelle - The Washington Post - 08-27-21
Re: https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...heir-own-army/

Photo link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-ap...OPZA.jpg&w=916
A Taliban fighter looks at Taliban flags and posters of leaders in Kabul, on Aug. 25. (AP Photo) (AP)

Taliban political leader Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in Kabul after two decades in exile, promising to form a coalition government — one that the Taliban would almost certainly control. But the frantic efforts this week by foreigners and Afghans seeking to exit the country, and Thursday’s bombings at the Kabul airport, do little to suggest a calm transition to Taliban rule.

By seizing power through a military victory against an incumbent regime, the Taliban join the ranks of dozens of other regimes over the past 75 years that formed after successful armed rebellion. Our research suggests the Taliban will confront an immediate hurdle: holding their ranks together before they can hope to consolidate control over Afghanistan.

While Afghanistan is a difficult territory to govern, the Taliban face challenges within their own organization. With a relatively decentralized and autonomous military apparatus and few institutional mechanisms of central control, the formerly exiled Taliban leadership may struggle to maintain the loyalty of their own armed forces.

How do groups transform from guerrilla fighters to government forces?

We’ve analyzed all “rebel regimes” — rebel groups that seized national power after an armed struggle — that emerged since 1945. We collect data on these groups’ political-military relations and organizational structures, and study how these factors shape post-conflict politics. How do the Taliban compare to other regimes that emerged after periods of armed rebellion — and where are the likely political fault lines?

Like most rebel regimes, the Taliban are coming into power with several important strengths. Rebel regimes typically replace the existing military with their own armed forces, which gives the new political regime a source of organizational control. The Taliban bring their considerable military forces, now fortified with weapons Coalition forces and Afghan soldiers left behind. The Taliban are also unusual among other rebel regimes — they’re getting a second shot at power, so have some governing experience most other rebel regimes lack.

These strengths will be pitted against the many threats to the emerging Taliban regime. They face an armed rebellion in the Panjshir valley as high-ranking officials of the former regime regroup and begin an insurgency of their own — and with some foreign support. And as these acts of defiance show, many Afghans don’t support the return to Taliban rule, while the initial reactions from foreign governments range from cool and cautious to actively hostile.

5 ways the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan will hurt Pakistan

Internal strife may be the biggest challenge

But as political scientists have shown, the principal threats to emerging regimes often come from within. And the Taliban have an important internal weakness: tenuous political control over their own armed forces. If other rebellions offer any clues, the very army that brought the Taliban to power could prove their primary obstacle to exercising power.

The Taliban military wing that emerged in 2002 operated largely without central oversight. Military commanders operated with high levels of independence from the exiled political leadership largely based in Quetta, Pakistan. While the decentralized nature of Taliban forces may have helped them survive the war, it poses immediate threats to internal unity and political control during the transition from guerrilla movement to government.

How to keep commanders in check

Our research shows that political leaders in rebel groups ensure the loyalty of their armed wings in three main ways: they promote individuals from their prewar organizations to top command positions; embed political commissars in the ranks; and establish new intelligence and security services to rein in disloyal commanders. These measures help ensure that the armed wing remains subordinate to the political wing.

For the Taliban, with armed and political wings operating largely in parallel, all three mechanisms of political control are absent. Small groups associated with the ousted Taliban government in Afghanistan began to reorganize starting in 2002, with little input from the former top leadership. These groups amalgamated into a loosely integrated “polycentric organization,” according to Taliban expert Antonio Giustozzi.

Moreover, the Taliban did not maintain political commissars, political bureaus or clerical authorities embedded in military units to monitor their officers. Unlike other rebel groups, the Taliban had no institutionalized intelligence and security service that reported to central commanders. Instead, the regional commands, at times in open conflict with the Pakistan-based headquarters, maintained their own intelligence departments. This decentralization deprives the leadership of a key mechanism for monitoring its subordinates.

These types of organizational problems are compounded when the political leadership spends the war in exile, away from the group’s field commanders. The research shows that these rebel leaders often struggle to control their commanders when the fighting stops.

In cases like Algeria (1952-1962), Angola (1963-1975), Eritrea (1972-1991), Indonesia (1945-1949), Mozambique (1964-1974), South Yemen (1963-1967) and Zimbabwe (1966-1979), political leaders spent all or part of the war abroad or in prison. The military forces actually fighting in each country gained considerable effective independence from their formal leaders. When the Angolan insurgents came into power, for example, the first conflict they faced was a struggle “between the fighters from the bush and the ideologues who had comfortably sat out the war in their offices.”

Similarly, the Taliban political leadership spent the 2002-2021 war abroad. And the exiled leadership had limited capacity to monitor the day-to-day operations of Taliban military commanders.

Which wing of the Taliban will prove subordinate?

Similar to other rebellions where military wings have gained autonomy from the political arm, the Taliban political leadership is likely to struggle to control the military. In other rebellions, former military commanders came to dominate the postwar regime. They even ousted their civilian overseers in multiple instances — for instance, Algeria in 1965; Bangladesh in 1975; and Indonesia in 1966.

Paradoxically, the speed of the Taliban victory this month may complicate these challenges. In some other insurgencies, political leaders are able to gradually centralize rule over military commanders before the war is over. By contrast, the Taliban are bringing their decentralized military forces into the corridors of power.

The Taliban face the task of transforming their loosely integrated guerrilla forces into a loyal and effective state military. While a counterrevolutionary struggle in the Panjshir valley could unify the Taliban, internal fissures within the factionalized armed forces seem likely to pose immediate obstacles to regime stability.

About these writer(s):

Professors: Check out TMC’s expanding list of classroom topic guides.

Adam E. Casey is a research fellow at the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED) at the University of Michigan

Dan Slater is director of the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan and a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Jean Lachapelle is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. The three authors are currently writing a book on the sources of military political power in the postcolonial world.

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Personal note: It's not Biden's fault that Afghanistan fell. The radical sec's within this sand pile of hell have stirred it up so that its once again a living hell for the residents. The folks who got out should give their blessing's to the US for saving their lives. China wants to come in there - well go for it China. Sweep the sand-pile of blood stained sand only to find yourselves in the same fix the US got into. The mindset of the radical extremist will not go down as long as the sun rise's and falls on that nation.
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Boats
__________________
Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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