Tag: Kabul

Interpreter describes household’s escape from Taliban in Kabul

Post author By
Post date September 6, 2021

Antifullah Ahmadzai, an Afghan national, takes a selfie inside of a U.S. military cargo aircraft before an evacuation flight from Kabul.

Courtesy: Antifullah Ahmadzai

WASHINGTON – One month ago, Atifullah Ahmadzai boarded a flight from Connecticut to Kabul, eager to hold his wife and five young children again.

The purpose of this trip was nearly a decade in the making as Ahmadzai, a former interpreter for the U.S. military, was carrying the final documents needed for his family to complete a coveted special immigrant visa.

While in Kabul, Ahmadzai planned on saying goodbye to friends and extended family members before bringing his wife and children to America, where he had spent the last two years preparing for their new life.

Ten days into his plans, after the rest of Afghanistan had already fallen during the U.S. military’s withdrawal, the Taliban seized the presidential palace in Kabul.

The swift collapse of the Afghan national government forced Ahmadzai and thousands of others to flood the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport, where Western forces were conducting evacuation flights out of the country.

The story of Ahmadzai and his family is emblematic of the desperation and fear felt by thousands of Afghans as U.S. and coalition forces withdrew the last of their troops from Afghanistan after a nearly 20-year occupation.

Over the course of 17 days leading up to Aug. 31, the U.S. and coalition partners airlifted more than 116,000 people out of Afghanistan on cargo aircraft. The Pentagon said it dedicated more than 5,000 U.S. service members and 200 aircraft to the colossal evacuation mission.

Meanwhile, governments around the world opened their borders to at-risk Afghan nationals arriving on evacuation flights.

“I wasn’t expecting that everything was going to change immediately,” Ahmadzai told CNBC.

“The Taliban made a checkpoint 800 feet away from my house, where they would question you about your job,” he said, adding that he was too afraid to disclose his previous role in the Afghan military.

Taliban forces stand guard in front of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 2, 2021.

Stringer | Reuters

At one checkpoint, Ahmadzai said his cell phone was searched by Taliban insurgents looking for anything that would confirm his ties to the previous government or to the United States.

“They were also knocking on people’s doors and asking about their jobs,” he said. “The homes of those who worked for the government or with the U.S. military were marked during the day and at night the Taliban came back to those houses to kill.” Fear of targeted killings by the Taliban fueled many Afghans’ desire to get out of the country.

A rallying cry on Facebook

Desperate for a way out, Ahmadzai sent a text message to a U.S. Army officer he translated for during America’s longest war.

“He addresses me as his brother,” said the officer, Mike Kuszpa, now a teacher in Connecticut, when asked about Ahmadzai’s initial message.

“He wrote to me and said, ‘Brother, my family and I are out here and the Taliban has been looking for interpreters. Who knows what’s gonna happen, they may kill me and my family,'” Kuszpa told CNBC.

A 2004 photo of Antifullah Ahmadzai (left) and Mike Kuszpa (right) in Afghanistan.

Courtesy of Mike Kuszpa

“I was grasping at straws. I didn’t know anybody, so I posted to a neighborhood message board on Facebook asking if anybody had Department of State connections that could help my interpreter and his family get on an evacuation flight,” he said.

The post to the 109-member “Westville Dads” Facebook group triggered a flurry of phone calls, Facebook messages, encrypted text messages and emails to a network that spanned from academia to intelligence analysts to lawmakers to diplomats.

“I got in touch with a former student of mine who is a foreign service officer about getting his documents in the system so that he wouldn’t be turned away at the airport,” said Matt Schmidt, national security and political science professor at the University of New Haven, who reached out to at least 16 people in a bid to help Ahmadzai.

“I counseled Atif to wait for a phone call from State to go to the airport,” Schmidt said using a shortened version of Ahmadzai’s first name, Atifullah. “Mike was uneasy about waiting and told Atif to go to the airport. It was the right call.”

A struggle to flee

Across the globe, Western forces intensified emergency humanitarian evacuations amid a backdrop of security threats and the Biden administration’s self-imposed Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline.

“At one point I started getting news alerts about gunfire at the airport while I was messaging with Atif. It was surreal,” said Schmidt, who breathlessly waited for updates from Ahmadzai.

In Kabul, Ahmadzai and his family were struggling to get out.

“It was difficult to get to the airport. I tried for three straight days but was not able to reach the gates,” Ahmadzai told CNBC, explaining that he had to sidestep Taliban checkpoints each time he and his family returned home after a full day of waiting at the airport.

“On the fourth day, I received a text message advising me to go through another gate. When I arrived, there were more than 1,000 people already gathered,” Ahmadzai said. He said there was occasional gunfire in the crowd.

“My family was very scared and shocked,” Ahmadzai said. “My wife asked me if we could go back because she was afraid for our children, but I told her we have to try and leave because it was better than dying at the hands of the Taliban.”

After more than three hours of waiting at the gate, Ahmadzai was able to get close enough to the U.S. Marines guarding the entry point to show them his green card and visa.

“I then showed them the paperwork for my children and wife,” he said. The Marines were able to verify his information, he said, because two days prior it was entered into the State Department’s system thanks to the network of mobilized dads on Facebook.

Ahmadzai’s next message to his friends coordinating his evacuation came from the interior gates of the airport.

Antifullah Ahmadzai, a former Afghan interpreter for the U.S. military, stands with his children and U.S. Marines at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

“When he sent that pic of him and his kids safe in the airport with the soldiers flanking him, I broke down in tears,” Schmidt said.

“As a dad, I couldn’t imagine the fate that awaited them if they didn’t get out,” Schmidt continued. “We were just dads reaching across the globe to help a fellow dad. That bound us all together, more than culture or religion. We knew what it meant to need to protect your family.”

A fateful departure

Ahmadzai, his wife and their children, who range from age 2 to 12, boarded a C-17 cargo military aircraft and flew to Qatar, which is about 1,200 miles from Kabul. They spent two nights and three days in the Persian Gulf country.

“Qatar camp was good, but as soon as we got there my second son was feeling very sick and he vomited more than 15 times as he was not familiar with this kind of situation. A medic came and gave him an IV quickly and after that, he was able to start eating and drinking again,” Ahmadzai said.

Antifullah Ahmadzai, an Afghan national, takes a selfie inside of a holding bay from an unspecified location in Qatar.

Courtesy: Antifullah Ahmadzai

After Qatar, the family was flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where they spent the night. The next day they boarded a flight to the United States and arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

Ahmadzai said he and his family were tested for Covid-19 and completed biometric health screenings before leaving the airport in Dulles. He was vaccinated against Covid earlier this year. The Pentagon has previously said that all Afghan nationals relocating to the United States who want the coronavirus vaccine will be able to receive one.

“I never expected to come back to the States alive,” said Ahmadzai, who spoke to CNBC over the course of a week from Qatar, Germany and the United States. He said he was “thankful that the United States helped us in a very critical situation.”

“There was no option, no flights and no way for me and my family to escape the Taliban,” he said.

When asked about his children, Ahmadzai said they were “doing great and happy.”

“The kids are quite different now. They think they are in a different world and are trying to learn a new language and way of life.”

Ahmadzai and his family recently left a U.S. military installation in Virginia, where they finished their special immigrant visa paperwork. He is returning to Connecticut with his family.

Kuszpa, the Army officer, said there are plans for an outdoor barbecue to welcome Ahmadzai’s family to the community.

“Now he’s here and a part of our family,” said Schmidt, the professor. “His kids will play with ours.”

Tags describes, Escape, Familys, Interpreter, Kabul, Taliban

Politics

Stranded in Kabul, Afghanistan: A US Resident Runs Out of Choices

Post author By
Post date August 31, 2021

WASHINGTON – For more than a week, Samiullah Naderi, a legal permanent resident of the United States, waited days and nights with his wife and son outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, hoping to be let in so they could join one of the dozen of daily flights to America.

“It’s 15 meters away,” said Mr. Naderi, 23, known as Sammy, in a short telephone interview in halting English on Sunday evening while gunfire crackled in the background. “Maybe the Taliban will let me in – maybe.”

But on Monday, after he was told that no more people would be allowed to enter the airport gate, Mr. Naderi and his family returned to their apartment in Kabul with no clear route back to Philadelphia, where he has lived since last year.

“All flights are closed,” he said with an incredulous laugh. “I’m afraid.”

Mr Naderi is among at least hundreds of U.S. citizens, and possibly thousands of green card holders, stranded in Afghanistan at the end of a 20-year war that culminated not in a reliable peace but in a two-week military airlift that has been evacuated more than 123,000 people.

The evacuations continued during the last US military flight from Kabul, which departed Monday evening, when the Biden government pledged to aid up to 200 Americans who remain to flee a brutal life under Taliban rule.

“The bottom line: Ninety percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave could leave,” said President Biden on Tuesday. He said the US government had alerted Americans 19 times since March to leave Afghanistan.

“And there is no deadline for the remaining Americans,” he said. “We remain determined to get them out if they want to come out.”

About 6,000 Americans, the vast majority of them dual Afghan citizens, were evacuated after August 14, Foreign Secretary Antony J. Blinken said Monday. The State Department has not released any figures on how many permanent legal US citizens have also been evacuated or, as in the case of Mr Naderi, have not got a flight. Immigration and refugee organizations estimated that thousands were left.

Mr. Blinken described “an extraordinary effort to give Americans every opportunity to leave the country” when diplomats made 55,000 calls and sent 33,000 emails to US citizens in Afghanistan, and in some cases took them to Kabul airport.

“We have no illusion that all of this will be easy or quick,” Blinken said at the State Department headquarters in Washington. “This will be a very different phase from the evacuation that has just been completed. It will take time to deal with new challenges. “

“But we’ll stick with it,” he said.

Several members of Congress had called for the US military to remain in Afghanistan until American citizens, permanent residents and an estimated tens of thousands of Afghans eligible for special immigrant visas can be evacuated. But that weekend, lawmakers sounded resigned when they admitted that many would be left behind.

“Our team will continue to work to safely evacuate American citizens and Afghan allies and reunite families and loved ones,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, on Twitter late Sunday evening. “I urge the State Department and the rest of our government to continue using every possible tool to get people to safety, deadline or not.”

Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, condemned the Biden government’s departure from Afghanistan as “insane” in an interview with ABC News “This Week” on Sunday.

“We have American citizens who are being left behind,” said Mr Sasse. “We have American green card holders who are being left behind. We have Afghan allies who are SIV owners, people who fought by our side, drivers, translators – people who actually fought with us. These people are people to whom we have made commitments. “

Updated

Aug. 31, 2021, 4:53 p.m. ET

The chaotic efforts to locate, contact and then bring American citizens to safety in Afghanistan are due to a lack of coordination within the US government, frustrated attempts at contact by the State Department and increasingly frequent warnings of possible attacks, the closings of airport gates and the Forced relocation of meeting places.

Aid groups in the United States helping American citizens and Afghans working with the U.S. government described a heartbreaking and dizzying process in which people trying to flee were diverted to pickup points across Kabul where they board buses or to join caravans drove to the airport, but were blocked on the way.

Some people reported that Taliban fighters took their American passports at checkpoints, the aides said. Others said they were harassed or beaten on the way to the meeting points and did not want to put themselves or their families in danger again. And some said they were turned back by American troops standing guard at the airport gate.

“Why can’t we get people out?” said Freshta Taeb, the US-born daughter of an Afghan refugee, who provides emotional counseling and translation services to Afghan immigrants in the United States, including those who have worked with the US military.

Ms. Taeb blamed the Biden administration for a military withdrawal, which she said “was carried out arbitrarily, carried out negligently”.

“It was time to make a plan and do what needed to be done to get these people out,” she said. “But it doesn’t look like there’s a strategy behind it.”

Understanding the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

Map 1 of 5

Who are the Taliban? The Taliban emerged in 1994 amid the unrest following the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including flogging, amputation and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here is more about their genesis and track record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who for years have been on the run, in hiding, in prison and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they say they are.

What is happening to the women of Afghanistan? When the Taliban was last in power, they banned women and girls from most jobs or from going to school. Afghan women have gained a lot since the Taliban was overthrown, but now they fear that they are losing ground. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are indications that they have begun to reintroduce the old order in at least some areas.

Ross Wilson, who was the top US diplomat in Afghanistan and was on the last military flight to take off, said on Twitter Monday that “alleges that American citizens have been denied access to Kabul airport by embassy staff or Americans was refused ”. Forces are wrong. “

In Washington, officials are struggling to keep up.

Military officials had privately accused the State Department of moving too slowly to handle a crowd begging for evacuation. State Department officials, who faced a backlog of visa applications from Afghans during the Trump administration, initially focused on finding Americans and verifying their citizenship.

Officials said a small but unspecified number of U.S. citizens have signaled that they do not want to flee Afghanistan, give up their home, work or education, or refuse to leave relatives behind, including elderly parents who do not Americans were and otherwise no way out.

Foreign-born spouses of American citizens and their unmarried children under the age of 21 can immigrate to the United States after obtaining certain permits, a process that was accelerated for some Afghans during the evacuation. Extended family members such as parents, siblings and other relatives must go through an immigration process that could take “an extraordinarily long time”, according to Jenna Gilbert, director of the refugee agency at Human Rights First.

However, there are no plans to change visa requirements for extended family members who “need to travel to the US in a different way,” said Ned Price, the ministry spokesman, on Friday.

Kabul Airport is expected to be fully operational for some time without the American military, although the Biden government is relying on allies, including Turkey and Qatar, to take over some of the operations to facilitate small charter flights for people who are want to leave, said Mr Blinken. The State Department is also considering how to protect American citizens and high-risk Afghans from Taliban reprisals heading to one of several neighboring states and then seeking safe passage to the United States.

Mr Naderi said Tuesday he was not sure what to do but was considering leaving Afghanistan across the border with Pakistan or Tajikistan. As proof of his American residency, he presented a picture of his green card received last year and said he lived with his father in Philadelphia in hopes of relocating his wife and son to the United States. (The State Department declined to comment on his case, citing privacy concerns.)

He returned to Afghanistan on August 10 to get immigration documents for his wife and son, said his father Esmail Naderi, who worked for several American military companies in construction and other fields from 2004 to 2015.

Five days later, the Taliban took power and the US embassy in Kabul was closed when diplomats were evacuated to the airport.

It was not possible to get the right visas for the family in time. “My situation is really bad at the moment,” said Samiullah Naderi on Tuesday.

Tags Afghanistan, Kabul, Options, Resident, Runs, stranded

Politics

Blinken Says American Diplomats Have Left Kabul

Post author By
Post date August 31, 2021

WASHINGTON — American diplomats have left Afghanistan, and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul will remain closed, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Monday, after the military announced that it had completed its withdrawal from the country.

The disintegration of diplomacy was a stunning turnabout from plans to stay and help Afghanistan transition from 20 years of war and to work toward peace, however tenuous, with a government that would share power with the Taliban. This month, Mr. Blinken had pledged that the United States would remain “deeply engaged” in Afghanistan long after the military left.

But with the Taliban firmly in control, what was one of the largest U.S. diplomatic missions in the world will for now be greatly scaled back, based in Doha, the Qatari capital, and focused largely on processing visas for refugees and other immigrants.

“Given the uncertain security environment and political situation in Afghanistan, it was the prudent step to take,” Mr. Blinken said in remarks at the State Department.

He sought to portray the departure as a “new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan.”

“It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy,” Mr. Blinken said, commending the U.S. diplomats, troops and other personnel who had worked at the embassy, which just last month had employed around 4,000 people — including 1,400 Americans.

Left uncertain was whether American efforts to stabilize the Afghan government would continue — the main thrust of years of painstaking work and negotiations with leaders in Kabul that were supported by billions of dollars in American taxpayer funding.

Instead, Mr. Blinken said that any engagement with the Taliban — a longtime U.S. enemy that seized power when President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan on Aug. 15 — “will be driven by one thing only: our vital national interests.”

Exactly four weeks earlier, on Aug. 2, Mr. Blinken had left little doubt that the Biden administration intended to keep the U.S. Embassy in Kabul open.

“Our partnership with the people of Afghanistan will endure long after our service members have departed,” he said then. “We will keep engaging intensely in diplomacy to advance negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban with the goal of a political solution, which we believe is the only path to lasting peace.”

As many as 200 American citizens, and tens of thousands of Afghans, were left behind in a two-week military airlift that Mr. Blinken called one of the largest evacuation efforts in U.S. history. He demanded that the Taliban keep its word and allow them to leave safely once they had exit documents in hand.

Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan

Card 1 of 5

Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be.

What happens to the women of Afghanistan? The last time the Taliban were in power, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. Afghan women have made many gains since the Taliban were toppled, but now they fear that ground may be lost. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are signs that, at least in some areas, they have begun to reimpose the old order.

More than 123,000 people were evacuated from Kabul in recent weeks, including about 6,000 Americans.

Mr. Blinken also said that the United States would closely watch the Taliban’s efforts to stanch terrorism in Afghanistan, as the group has said it will do, and would continue to work with the international community to provide humanitarian aid to millions of Afghans who need food, medicine and health care after decades of war and political instability.

He struck a resolute tone about the diplomatic retreat, and in reminding Americans about the cost of the conflict.

America’s longest war, with its casualties and the resources that were sunk into it over the past 20 years, “demands reflection,” Mr. Blinken said.

“We must learn its lessons, and allow those lessons to shape how we think about fundamental questions of national security and foreign policy,” he said. “We owe that to future diplomats, policymakers, military leaders, service members. We owe that to the American people.”

Tags American, Blinken, Diplomats, Kabul, left

Politics

America ends its longest battle, finishes Kabul withdrawal

Post author By
Post date August 31, 2021

A handout photo of a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul.

Handout | Getty Images News

WASHINGTON – America’s longest war is over.

The United States has ended its withdrawal efforts from the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced on Monday, effectively ending a two-decade conflict that began not long after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Following the Pentagon’s announcement, President Joe Biden thanked the American military in a statement Monday evening and said he would speak to the nation on Tuesday afternoon about his decision not to extend the U.S. mission in Afghanistan beyond August 31.

“In the past 17 days, our forces conducted the largest airlift in US history, evacuating over 120,000 US citizens, citizens of our allies and Afghan allies of the United States,” the president said in the statement.

“They did it with unmatched courage, professionalism and determination. Now our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has come to an end.”

In the last week of the withdrawal, ISIS-K terrorists killed 13 US soldiers and dozens of Afghans in an attack outside the airport. US forces hit back and launched strikes to thwart other attacks.

The last C-17 military cargo aircraft left Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday afternoon Eastern Time, according to U.S. Marine Corps General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, last two weeks.

McKenzie, who oversees US military operations in the region, said the Taliban had no direct knowledge of the timing of the US military’s departure, adding that local commanders “have chosen to keep this information very limited” .

“But they were very helpful and useful to us when we shut down,” McKenzie said of the Taliban.

McKenzie said there were no Americans on the last five flights from Kabul.

“We couldn’t get any Americans out, this operation probably ended about 12 hours before we moved out. We’ll continue the operations and would have been ready to get them until the last minute, but none of them made it to the airport,” said McKenzie .

The four-star general added that there were no more evacuees at the airfield when the last C-17 took off and confirmed that all US soldiers and troops of the Afghan armed forces and their families were also flown out of the air on Monday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said later Monday that fewer than 200 Americans are still seeking evacuation.

“Our commitment to you and all Americans in Afghanistan and around the world continues. The protection and well-being of Americans abroad remains the most important and long-lasting mission of the State Department,” said the country’s top diplomat in an evening address.

Early Monday, US and Allied forces evacuated 1,200 people from the Afghan capital on 26 military cargo plane flights in 24 hours, according to the latest White House figures.

About 122,800 people have been evacuated since the end of July, including about 6,000 U.S. citizens and their families.

“A new chapter of American engagement in Afghanistan has begun. It is one in which we will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission has ended. A new diplomatic mission has begun,” said Blinken.

Blinken added that the US has suspended its diplomatic presence in Kabul and will move those operations to Doha, Qatar.

“We will remain vigilant in monitoring threats ourselves and maintain robust counter-terrorism capabilities in the region to neutralize those threats if necessary – as we have done in recent days through striking ISIS brokers and even threats in Afghanistan and locations around the world.” Environment have demonstrated the world in which we have no armed forces on the ground, “said Blinken.

The Taliban are returning to power

Taliban fighters patrol the Wazir Akbar Khan district in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday, August 18, 2021.

Rahmat Gül | AP

The US began its war in Afghanistan in October 2001, weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Back then, the Taliban offered refuge to al-Qaeda, the group that launched the devastating terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Since then, around 2,500 US soldiers have died in the conflict, which also killed more than 100,000 Afghan soldiers, police officers and civilians.

Now the Taliban are back in power.

In the final weeks of a planned exodus of foreign troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban achieved a number of shocking successes on the battlefield.

The Taliban occupied Bagram Air Base, a sprawling and once staunch US military facility, less than two months after US commanders handed it over to the Afghan National Security and Defense Force.

In 2012, at its peak, Bagram looked through more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers. It was the largest US military facility in Afghanistan.

As the Taliban approached the capital, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and western nations rushed to evacuate embassies amid deteriorating security conditions.

Biden ordered thousands of US soldiers to be sent to Kabul to help evacuate US embassy staff and secure the airport.

Meanwhile, thousands of Afghans swarmed over the airport tarmac to flee Taliban rule.

Although the Afghan military, long supported by US and NATO coalition forces, is vastly outnumbered, the Taliban captured the presidential palace in Kabul on August 15.

In April, Biden ordered the full withdrawal of about 3,000 US troops from Afghanistan by September 11th. He later announced an updated schedule that said the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan would end by August 31.

After the Taliban takeover, Biden defended his decision that the US would leave the war-torn country.

“I am fully behind my decision. After 20 years I have learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw the US armed forces,” said Biden a day after the Taliban collapsed Afghanistan.

“American troops cannot and should not fight in a war and die in a war that the Afghan armed forces are unwilling to wage for themselves,” Biden said. “We gave them every chance to determine their own future. We couldn’t give them the will to fight for that future,” he added.

Last US casualties in the war in Afghanistan

In this U.S. Air Force image, flag-draped transfer cases line the interior of a transport aircraft prior to a graceful transfer at Dover Air Force Base, Del. The fallen soldiers were killed while assisting evacuations in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Jason Minto | US Air Force

The Pentagon on Saturday released the names of the 13 US soldiers killed after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive near the gates of Kabul airport.

The August 26 attack that killed 11 Marines, one Marine and one Army soldier is currently under investigation.

On Sunday, the President and First Lady Jill Biden traveled to Dover Air Force Base to meet privately with the families of the fallen before watching the graceful handover of American flag-draped coffins from a C-17 military cargo plane to a vehicle .

A dignified transfer is a solemn process in which the remains of fallen soldiers are transported from an airplane to a waiting vehicle. It is carried out for every U.S. soldier killed in action.

The remains of the soldiers were flown from Kabul to Kuwait and then to Germany before arriving in Dover.

On Sunday, Biden took part in a dignified transfer for the first time since taking office.

United States President Joe Biden will attend the dignified transfer of the remains of a fallen soldier at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware on August 29, 2021

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley also attended the dignified transfer, along with U.S. Marine Corps Commander Gen. David Berger, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday and US Air Force Col. Chip Hollinger, who oversaw the military logistics of the transfer.

The fallen include:

Marine Corps Staff Sgt.Din T. Hoover, 31, from Salt Lake City, Utah

Marine Corps Sgt.Johanny Rosariopichardo, 25, from Lawrence, Massachusetts

Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, from Sacramento, California

Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, from Indio, California

Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha, Nebraska

Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Indiana

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, from Rio Bravo, Texas

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, from St. Charles, Missouri

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyoming

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, from Rancho Cucamonga, California

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, California

Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, from Berlin Heights, Ohio

Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tennessee.

Tags America, Ends, finishes, Kabul, longest, War, withdrawal

Politics

Biden Receives Our bodies of Troopers Killed in Kabul Bombing

Post author By
Post date August 30, 2021

The transfers began in the late morning and stretched nearly 40 minutes, finishing after noon. Time and again, service members in varying shades of green fatigues carried flag-draped transfer cases down the ramp of the transport, which faced Air Force One on the runway. First came the Army, then the Marines, then the Navy. The carry teams, as they are called, worked in three-minute cycles, marching before a host of dignitaries including the president, the secretaries of state and defense, and several top military brass. They carried the remains from the transport and lifted them through the back cargo doors of four gray vans.

The president stood with his hand over his heart as they passed by. When sets of Marines returned to the belly of the C-17, hands empty, to retrieve the next set of remains, Mr. Biden widened his stance and clasped his hands by his belt or behind his back. Often he bowed his head with his eyes squeezed shut, as if in prayer.

Across from him sat rows of family members of the fallen, so many of them that the Dover base could not house them all in its rooms built specially for next of kin.

The fallen service members returning Sunday to Dover were Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City; Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Mass.; Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento, Calif.; Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, Calif.; Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha; Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Ind.; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Mo.; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyo.; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, Calif.; Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio; and Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tenn.

The president and the first lady, Jill Biden, met with the families of those service members midmorning on Sunday. They then participated in 13 transfers — 11 for families who chose to allow the news media to observe the remains of their loved ones returning home, and two for families who chose to keep their transfers private.

Tags Biden, Bodies, bombing, Kabul, Killed, receives, Soldiers

World News

Afghanistan Updates: Rockets Launched at Kabul Airport After U.S. Strikes

Post author By
Post date August 30, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The U.S. military shot down rockets aimed at the Kabul airport on Monday morning as violence near the field threatened efforts by the United States to meet Tuesday’s deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan and end America’s longest war.

A U.S. official said the rockets were brought down by a counter-rocket system after five were fired at the airport, and that there were no initial reports of casualties. The airport remained open, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details.

The move by the U.S. military underlined the precariousness of the security situation in the Afghan capital and the dangers of an imminent security vacuum, with just two days remaining before President Biden’s Tuesday deadline to complete the withdrawal from America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan.

It followed another U.S. strike on Sunday, when a U.S. military drone strike blew up a vehicle laden with explosives in Kabul on Sunday, officials said.

Afghans said the drone strike killed as many as nine civilians, including children, and the U.S. military said it was investigating.

The Sunday strike thwarted an imminent threat to Hamid Karzai International Airport from the Islamic State Khorasan, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said.

Defense officials in a statement Sunday evening acknowledged the possibilities that civilians may have been killed after the strike.

Bill Urban, the CentCom spokesman, said he was aware that there had been powerful subsequent explosions resulting from the destruction of a vehicle, that may have caused additional casualties. “We are aware of reports of civilian casualties following our strike on a vehicle in Kabul today,” he said. “We are still assessing the results of this strike.”

He added: “We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life.”

Credit…Aamaj News Agency, via Reuters

The chief Taliban spokesman and people in Kabul who posted on social media said that both a house and a vehicle had been hit in a neighborhood just west of the airport and that several civilians had been killed, as well.

Samim Shahyad, a 25-year-old journalism student, said the strike killed his father, his two brothers, four of his young cousins, his niece and his sister’s fiancé. Three of the dead were girls 2 years old or younger, he said, and his aunt and uncle lost all three of their children.

“The American aircraft targeted us,” he said. “I do not know what to say, they just cut my arms and broke my back, I cannot say anything more.”

A doctor at a nearby hospital said four bodies were taken there, two of them those of children.

A senior U.S. military official responded that the military was confident that no civilians had been in the targeted vehicle but acknowledged that the detonation of the explosives in it could have caused “collateral damage.”

Video of the scene showed a tangle of metal barely recognizable as the remains of a vehicle, and just a few feet away, the charred, pockmarked wreck of another vehicle, an S.U.V. Mr. Shahyad said his father had been pulling into their garage when the explosion hit.

Earlier Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul had said that there was a “specific, credible threat” to the airport area, where a suicide bombing on Thursday killed as many as 170 civilians and 13 members of the American military. The Islamic State Khorasan claimed responsibility for the attack. Mr. Biden had warned on Saturday that another attack was “highly likely” in the coming hours.

Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

The United States is unlikely to keep diplomats in Afghanistan after the U.S. military departs on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Sunday, ending a 20-year mission of one of the largest American embassies in the world.

Officials said it was expected that the U.S. mission to Afghanistan would open a diplomatic mission in a country elsewhere in the region, in part to continue helping the surge of expected refugees obtain necessary departure documents. That effort could be based in Pakistan or the United Arab Emirates, an official said, given the large Afghan diaspora in both countries. American diplomats have also for years held peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar, where there is a large U.S. military base that is being used now as a way station for tens of thousands of Afghans who have been evacuated.

After saying last week that the Biden administration was reviewing options for the future of the embassy in Kabul, Mr. Blinken told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “in terms of having an on-the-ground diplomatic presence on Sept. 1, that’s not likely to happen.”

“But what is going to happen is that our commitment to continue to help people leave Afghanistan who want to leave and who are not out by Sept. 1, that endures,” Mr. Blinken said. “There’s no deadline on that effort. And we have ways, we have mechanisms to help facilitate the ongoing departure of people from Afghanistan if they choose to leave.”

The Taliban had wanted the United States and other foreign diplomats to remain in Kabul as acknowledgment of the Taliban’s legitimacy as Afghanistan’s rulers.

Ending the American diplomatic presence in the country will be a blow to the U.S. diplomatic corps. Hundreds of American diplomats served in Afghanistan after the embassy was reclaimed by Marines in December 2001 during the U.S.-led invasion. It had been closed since 1989, when the Soviet military withdrew from Afghanistan after a 10-year war.

The diplomatic mission’s staffing levels ballooned during a so-called civilian surge that coincided with an increase in military troops that began in 2010. The embassy compound in Kabul later expanded, with hundreds of millions of dollars in additional office space, employee apartments, fortified gates and blast walls over 15 acres, about the size of Liberty Island in New York Harbor.

Just weeks before the embassy closed on Aug. 15, as the Taliban took over the capital, its staff stood at about 4,000 employees, around 1,400 of whom were American diplomats, contractors and officials from other U.S. agencies.

Nonessential employees had been flown out months before, and by the time the American flag was lowered two weeks ago, only a small core of diplomats remained to be evacuated to a secure compound at the international airport where they could be protected by the military. Now, with the military departing — as part of an agreement with the Taliban — the State Department saw little choice but to also withdraw its diplomats.

VideoPresident Biden joined the families of 13 U.S. service members killed in a bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan last week, as their remains were brought to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The fallen included 11 Marines, a Navy medic and an Army member.CreditCredit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — President Biden landed in Delaware on Sunday morning to join the families of the 13 members of the U.S. military who were killed in a bombing last week in Afghanistan.

The service members include 11 Marines, a Navy medic and a member of the Army. They were killed at the airport in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, by a bomber from the Islamic State Khorasan group as they attempted to help people escape the country before American troops complete their withdrawal.

The president and first lady, Jill Biden, met with the families on Sunday morning. They then participated in 13 transfers — 11 for families who chose to allow media to observe the remains of their loved ones returning home, and two for families who chose to keep their transfers private.

The fallen service members returning Sunday to Dover were: Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City; Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Mass.; Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento, Calif.; Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, Calif.; Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha; Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Ind.; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Mo.; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyo.; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, Calif.; Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio; and Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tenn.

Mr. Biden stood at attention with his right hand over his heart as service members in varying shades of green fatigues — first for the Army, then the Marines, then the Navy — carried flag-draped transfer cases containing remains of the fallen from the belly of a gray C-17 transport plane to a fleet of four gray vans with their back doors open.

The carry teams, as they are called, worked in three-minute cycles, with the public set of 11 transfers lasting just under 40 minutes total, including a prayer at the beginning.

In between transfers, the president spread his legs wider, clasped his hands at his belt or behind his back, and frequently closed his eyes and bowed his head.

A large group of federal dignitaries were on hand for the transfers, including Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III; Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and several members of Congress. One observer, who the White House later identified as Martha Carper, the wife of Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware, appeared to faint midway through one of the transfers.

The White House did not announce the trip in advance. It is the first time Mr. Biden has witnessed the return of service members killed in the line of duty since assuming the presidency. The men and women killed in the Kabul attack were the first American service members killed by hostile forces since March 2020. Mr. Biden witnessed a transfer as vice president in 2016.

“The 13 service members that we lost were heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others,” Mr. Biden said in a written statement released on Saturday. “Their bravery and selflessness has enabled more than 117,000 people at risk to reach safety thus far.”

Credit…Hosay

Hundreds of students, their relatives and staff of American University of Afghanistan gathered at a safe house on Sunday and boarded buses in what was supposed to be a final attempt at evacuation on U.S. military flights, the students said.

But after seven hours of waiting for clearance to enter the airport gates and driving around the city, the group met a dead end: Evacuations were permanently called off. The airport gates remained a security threat, and civilian evacuations were ending Monday.

“I regret to inform you that the high command at HKIA in the airport has announced there will be no more rescue flights,” said an email sent to students from the university administration on Sunday afternoon, which was shared with The New York Times.

“The scholar pilgrims who were turned away today while seeking safe passage to a better future need the help of the U.S. government who gave them the hope they must not lose,” the American University president, Ian Bickford, said.

The email asked the 600 or so students and relatives to return home. The U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan must be completed by a Tuesday deadline, so the U.S. military is turning from evacuating civilians to bringing its own personnel home.

The group was then alarmed after the U.S. military, following protocol, shared a list of names and passport information of hundreds of students and their families with the Taliban guarding the airport checkpoints, the university president said.

“They told us: we have given your names to the Taliban,” said Hosay, a 24-year-old sophomore studying business administration who was on the bus on Sunday. “We are all terrified, there is no evacuation, there is no getting out.”

Hosay earned a scholarship that covered half of her tuition. She wanted to get an M.B.A. and start an all-female engineering firm.

When the Taliban took over Kabul on Aug. 15, one of the first sites the group captured was the sprawling, modern American University campus. Men in traditional Afghan outfits and swinging AK-47 rifles raised the flag of the Taliban and brought down the university flag, according to student and social media photos.

The Taliban posted a picture of themselves on social media standing at the entrance of a university building with an ominous message, saying they were where America trained infidel “wolves” to corrupt the minds of Muslims.

The photograph was widely shared among Afghans and sent students and alumni into hiding. They had reason to be scared. In 2016, the Taliban attacked the campus with explosives and guns in a terrorist assault that lasted 10 hours and killed 15 people, including seven students.

The university shut down its campus on Aug. 14 as word reached that the Taliban were on the outskirts of Kabul. The American University president, Ian Bickford, and foreign staff left Kabul for Doha that night.

Mr. Bickford said in an interview last week that he was working with the State Department to evacuate about 1,200 students and alumni. But on Friday after the deadly attack on the airport, Mr. Bickford said that effort had become much more complicated.

Mr. Bickford said the university was committed to ensuring all enrolled students would finish their degrees remotely.

The American University of Afghanistan opened in 2006 with most of its funding from the United States Agency for International Development, which gave $160 million. It was one of the U.S.A.I.D.’s largest civilian projects in Afghanistan.

For over two weeks, students and alumni said they struggled emotionally as their status changed from college students to fugitives overnight.

Several students interviewed repeated a poetic saying in Dari: “Our hopes and dreams have turned into dust.”

Mohammad, a 31-year-old father of three and part-time government ministry worker, had three more courses left to finish his degree in business administration.

His job and salary are now gone. His degree is in jeopardy.

“It’s as if you throw a glass on a cement floor and your life shatters in a split second,” he said Sunday from a safe house.

Yasser, a 27-year-old political science student, said he was told in an email from the university on Saturday to report to a safe location for evacuation. But after President Biden said there were security threats to the airport, the plan was scrapped and everyone was sent home.

Early Sunday morning, Yasser received another email from the university asking him to go to a safe house at 7:45 a.m. The students were told to bring only a backpack with two outfits. Videos shared with The New York Times of the evacuation show hundreds of students, carrying backpacks waiting on the roadside. Dozens of buses are lined up.

The chitchat among students abruptly ends and someone gasps. Someone cries. The students have just been told that evacuations have been called off.

“It was a frightening day,” Yasser said. “We went there anticipating to be rescued and returned home defeated.”

Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

The suicide bomb blast that killed more than 170 people crowded outside Abbey Gate at Kabul’s airport on Thursday also sundered a family gathered there, hoping to flee.

Ahmad Wali Stanekzai’s wife, Zakya, died from injuries sustained in the explosion. He couldn’t find his three children — Mina, Ahmad Faisal, and Masiullah — who had disappeared in the bedlam after the explosion.

Masiullah, a teenager, was dazed from the blast and called his aunt, Ferishta Stanekzai, who lives in Virginia.

“He said, ‘I don’t know about my mom, dad, brother and sister, what happened to them, but I am here alone, and there is firing, and I don’t know where I should go,’” Ms. Stanekzai said in an interview on Sunday.

Ms. Stanekzai began working the phones, with the help of Lt. Gen. John A. Bradley, a retired Air Force officer who has been trying to extricate several hundred Afghans in the two weeks since the Taliban captured Kabul. This account is based on interviews with Ms. Stanekzai and General Bradley, who have been in contact with Mr. Stanekzai and other relatives and neighbors.

Mr. Stanekzai’s family were among the Afghans General Bradley tried to help. They had traveled to the airport in Kabul in a desperate attempt to get on a flight with documentation from General Bradley, but with no official clearance to board a plane. As they tried to navigate a path out of the country, the Islamic State Korasan, the terrorist group’s Afghan affiliate, attacked the gate.

“Finally we contact my brother, and he says that ‘I don’t know about my two kids, but I lost my wife,’” Ms. Stanekzai said.

Mr. Stanekzai began searching the hospitals in Kabul for his missing children, and in time reunited with his oldest son. But he couldn’t find his other two children, and he and Ms. Stanekzai contacted dozens of friends and neighbors to scour the city.

In time they learned that the two children had boarded an airplane with a neighbor, Imran Ibrahim. But Mr. Stanekzai did not know the flight’s destination.

Ms. Stanekzai eventually reached Mr. Ibrahim. He and the children had landed in Germany, where the children received medical treatment for injuries from the Kabul blast at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, near Ramstein Air Base.

But Mr. Stanekzai and Masiullah are still in Kabul, with no way out, as President Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline fast approaches. Their plight is just one example of the tens of thousands of Afghans with connections to the United States desperate to escape.

General Bradley said he and family members have appealed to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia, and retired military leaders to reach out to President Biden or other officials who can help the Stanekzais secure a flight out of Kabul.

A White House staffer and an aide to Senator Warner said they were working on it, but so far a flight out for the Stanekzais has not been approved, General Bradley said.

“The security situation is making things very difficult,” Rachel Cohen, Mr. Warner’s communications director, said in an email on Sunday, adding that “this is a priority for us.”

Mr. Stanekzai and his son have stayed in a home in Kabul, leaving briefly to hold an Islamic funeral for his wife.

Reaching the airport means enduring Taliban checkpoints, chaotic streets and the possibility of another terrorist attack.

“I understand how difficult it is, since we’ve already lost so many precious young American lives in this operation, but I feel that it is an obligation of our country to reunite this family,” General Bradley said in an interview on Sunday.

Ms. Stanekzai said that her brother and nephew were concerned that their time was running out.

“‘What will happen if we don’t get out?’” Ms. Stanekzai said her nephew asked in a recent conversation. “‘I just want to be with my brother and sister.’”

Credit…Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

One of the last photos that Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee shared with her family from Afghanistan shows her in dusty body armor with a rifle, her long blond hair pulled back, her hands in tactical gloves. Amid the chaos of Kabul, those hands are carefully cradling a baby.

It was a moment captured on the front lines of the airport, where Marines worked feverishly to shepherd tens of thousands of evacuees through chaotic and dangerous razor wire gates. It showed how, even in the tumult, many took time to comfort the families who made it through.

In a short message posted with the photo, the sergeant said, “I love my job🤘🏼”

Sergeant Gee never made it out.

“She believed in what she was doing, she loved being a Marine,” her brother-in-law, Gabriel Fuoco, said. “She wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.”

Sergeant Gee, 23, of Roseville, Calif., was one of two women in uniform killed at the gate. The other was Marine Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Mass. Sergeant Rosario was commended by her unit in May for excellence in a supply chief job usually given to someone of higher rank.

“Her service was not only crucial to evacuating thousands of women and children, but epitomizes what it means to be a Marine: putting herself in danger for the protection of American values so that others might enjoy them,” Marine First Lt. John Coppola said about Sergeant Rosario in a statement.

For most of military history, women were not allowed in combat. The few admitted to the Marines largely did clerical work. In 2001, at the start of the war in Afghanistan, women Marines were not assigned to gate duty, said Kate Germano, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel.

But decades of insurgency wars fought in conservative Muslim countries forced the military to evolve.

The Marine Corps slowly, often grudgingly, opened all combat jobs to women. They now make up about 9 percent of the force. It’s still a small part of the force compared to other military branches, Ms. Germano said, “But every year, more women are out front, bearing the burden more equally with men.”

Credit…Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The United States and 97 other countries said on Sunday that they would continue to take in people fleeing Afghanistan after the American military departs this week and had secured an agreement with the Taliban to allow safe passage for those who are leaving.

The Taliban’s chief negotiator, Sher Mohammed Abas Stanekzai, had announced on Friday that the group would not stop people from departing, no matter their nationality or whether they had worked for the United States during the 20-year war.

The joint statement released on Sunday on behalf of more than half of the world’s governments and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said that they had “received assurances from the Taliban” that people with travel documents showing they were clear to enter any of those countries could safely depart.

The countries also pledged to “continue issuing travel documentation to designated Afghans” and cited a “clear expectation of and commitment from the Taliban” of their safe passage.

“We note the public statements of the Taliban confirming this understanding,” the statement said.

Notably missing from the statement were Russia and China, two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council who have pledged to help the Taliban rebuild Afghanistan.

The statement did not warn of any consequences should the Taliban renege on the agreement, although a senior State Department official said it was meant to convey an implicit message about incentives — namely, foreign aid to the government — that the international community would use to enforce it.

The chief American envoy to Taliban peace talks, Zalmay Khalilzad, tweeted on Saturday that the Taliban’s assurances were “positive” and that “we, our allies, and the international community will hold them to these commitments.”

That stood in stark contrast to the tens of thousands of Afghans who relief agencies said feared being left behind and living under Taliban rule. That includes those who worked for the American military or the U.S. Embassy since 2001 and were eligible to immigrate to the United States.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told ABC News on Sunday that there were 300 Americans who were still waiting to be evacuated from Kabul.

“We are very actively working to help them get to the airport, get on a plane and get out of Afghanistan,” Mr. Blinken said.

When he was asked about the assurances from the Taliban, Mr. Blinken said that the U.S. government was not under any illusions.

“I’m not saying we should trust the Taliban on anything,” he said. “I’m simply reporting what one of their senior leaders said to the Afghan people.”

Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.

Credit…Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Two nonprofit organizations that have been trying, with disappointing results, to help scores of prominent Afghan women and their families escape their country have been finding increasingly formidable obstacles in their paths.

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, the founder and chief executive of the Washington, D.C.,-based International Civil Society Action Network, said the group has been trying to find room on charter flights for the Afghans, who include journalists, human rights activists and others. But the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport on Thursday has made those efforts much more difficult.

“In the last day or two, I am getting a lot of women telling me goodbye. Women starting to give up,” said Deeyah Khan, an International Civil Society Action Network board member and a documentary filmmaker. “The least we can do is make sure they don’t stand completely alone.”

Too Young to Wed, a nonprofit based in Peekskill, N.Y., that was founded by the photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair, has also been trying to organize charter flights to evacuate prominent Afghan women since the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

As of Saturday, Ms. Sinclair said the group had only been able to help about 60 women and their families leave the country on flights and is now considering trying to organize evacuations by land that would involve a long, dangerous journey to border areas.

“It is heartbreaking and terrifying that this generation of women leaders have to fear their lives, for simply having dreams and wanting to have a purpose in life as a woman,” Ms. Sinclair said.

The two organizations have received calls and messages from Afghan women who are unsure what to do and how to keep their family members safe.

The Taliban’s chief spokesman has said that “there will be no violence against women” under the new regime. Zabihullah Mujahid promised this week that “no prejudice against women will be allowed” and said that they could participate in society — “within the bounds of Islamic law.”

But in social media posts and interviews, many Afghan women say the Taliban have already imposed some restrictions. Some women who were employees of the former government have stopped going to work, fearing retribution.

“I am waiting for some kind of miracle to take me out of this country,” said Hosay, 24, a college student in Kabul who wanted to create an engineering company led by women engineers. “My future under the Taliban is a dead end.”

Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

Two congressmen who made an unauthorized trip to the airport in Kabul last week defended themselves on Sunday amid accusations that their visit was an unwelcome distraction from the evacuation effort.

“Those accusations are just not true,” one of the congressmen, Representative Seth Moulton, Democrat of Massachusetts, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“At the end of the day, I don’t care what pundits in Washington are saying,” he added. “They’ve been wrong about this war for 20 years.”

Mr. Moulton and the other congressman, Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan, visited the airport days before a suicide bombing there killed as many as 170 civilians and 13 members of the American military.

Speaking on CNN on Sunday, Mr. Meijer said that he and Mr. Moulton were “uniquely positioned” among members of Congress to make the trip, given their backgrounds.

“Not only have we both served with the military in Iraq, we’d also spent time in Afghanistan as civilians,” Mr. Meijer said. He added, “We were uniquely situated to be able to get in, get out, be as quiet as possible, but also take away as much information as possible.”

More than 70 House members are veterans, according to the Republican minority on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

The two lawmakers also continued to criticize the Biden administration’s handling of the evacuation, while acknowledging that their trip to Kabul had changed their minds about President Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline for a full withdrawal, which they had previously urged the administration to extend.

“We realized that we did not have that leverage,” Mr. Meijer said. “We were wholly dependent on the cooperation of the Taliban.”

He added, “This is the least worst of the options that are before us.”

Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

The Department of Defense on Saturday identified the 13 members of the U.S. military who were killed in the attack on the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Thursday as they worked to evacuate people to safety. They hailed from across the country — from California to Wyoming to Tennessee — and had an average age of just over 22. Eleven were Marines, one was a Navy medic and another was a member of the Army.

Here is what we know about them.

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Staff Sergeant Hoover was a born leader, his father Darin Hoover said, who loved the United States and was on his third tour in Afghanistan. “He led his men into that, and they followed him, but I know — I know in my heart of hearts, he was out front,” Mr. Hoover said. “And they would’ve followed him through the gates of hell if that’s what it took, and, ultimately, that’s pretty much what he did.”

Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Mass.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Sergeant Rosario should be “recognized as the hero that she was,” her family told the mayor of Lawrence. Her former junior R.O.T.C. instructor recalled her as an “absolute warrior” in high school, and Marine First Lt. John Coppola said in a statement that she had been “crucial to evacuating thousands of women and children.” The Dominican Republic’s embassy in the U.S. said that she was Dominican-American.

Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento, Calif.

Credit…via Gabriel Fuoco

In Sergeant Gee’s most recent post on Instagram, less than a week ago, she stands next to a long line of people waiting to file into a military plane at the Kabul airport. “Escorting evacuees onto the bird,” she wrote. In another post, in which she is holding a child in Kabul, she wrote, “I love my job.” A fellow sergeant wrote on Facebook that Sergeant Gee’s car was still in the lot at a Marine Corps base in North Carolina: “I drove it around the parking lot every once in a while to make sure it would be good for when she came home.”

Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, Calif.

Credit…Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, via Reuters

Corporal Lopez’s mother told a reporter in Southern California that her son had recently carried an Afghan toddler several miles to safety, and asked people to light a candle in his honor. Corporal Lopez’s parents both work for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in California, his father as a captain and his mother as a deputy. “Like his parents who serve our community, being a Marine to Hunter wasn’t a job; it was a calling,” the Riverside Sheriffs’ Association wrote in a statement.

Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Corporal Page grew up in Red Oak, Iowa, and in the area around Omaha, and joined the Marines after high school, his family said in a statement. He had four siblings and was a member of the Boy Scouts, played club hockey, hunted with his father and had a “soft spot in his heart for dogs,” they said. “To his younger siblings, he was their favorite jungle gym and to his friends, he was a genuinely happy guy that you could always count on,” the family said, adding that he was being mourned by his parents, stepparents, siblings, grandparents and his girlfriend.

Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Ind.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Corporal Sanchez lived in a small city about an hour and a half north of Indianapolis and had graduated from Logansport High School. The mayor of Logansport said that Corporal Sanchez “still had his entire life ahead of him” and that the young man had sacrificed himself by “putting himself into harm’s way” as part of the mission in Kabul. Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana vowed “to honor him in every way” possible. “Few among us answer a call of duty so dangerous as Corporal Sanchez volunteered to do,” he said.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Lance Corporal Espinoza’s mother told a local television station that she had received a call at 2:30 a.m. informing her of her young son’s death. “I am proud of him because of what he did but as a mother, you know, it’s hard,” his mother, Elizabeth Holguin, told the station, KGNS-TV, as she teared up. The station reported that Lance Corporal Espinoza’s sister had just turned 13. The corporal was born in Laredo, Texas, his family said, and he had been stationed in Jordan for two years before being transferred to Kabul about a week ago. “He always knew” how much his parents loved him, Ms. Holguin said.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Mo.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Lance Corporal Schmitz, who lived in a suburb of St. Louis, had been stationed in Jordan on his first deployment before being transferred to Afghanistan for the evacuation mission about two weeks ago, his father, Mark Schmitz, told KMOX radio in St. Louis. “It’s something he always wanted to do and I’ve never seen a young man train as hard as he did to be the best soldier he could be,” Mr. Schmitz said, adding that the family was both devastated and furious. “Somebody just came along and took the easy way out and ended everything for him and for us — and for those others that were killed,” he said.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyo.

Credit…via the McCollum Family

Lance Corporal McCollum had dreamed of becoming a Marine ever since he was 3 years old, his father, Jim, said in an interview. He, too, was recently transferred from Jordan to Afghanistan, and Mr. McCollum began checking his phone for a little green dot on a messaging app that showed that his son was online — and OK. When news came that 13 Americans had died in the attack, he again checked for the dot and sent him a message with no response. “In my heart yesterday afternoon, I knew,” Mr. McCollum said, adding that his son was “a beautiful soul.”

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Lance Corporal Merola was “one of the best kids ever,” said Cheryl Merola, his mother. He was “kind, loving” and “would give anything for anybody,” she told KCBS-TV. His grandmother told the station that Lance Corporal Merola would frequently say he wanted to come home to his family. He had been transferred to Afghanistan about a week and a half ago, and left a voice mail message with his mother saying he would not be able to talk to her for a while and that he loved her. Los Osos High School in Southern California, from which he recently graduated, held a moment of silence for him at a football game on Friday.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, Calif.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Lance Corporal Nikoui was a young martial arts champion whose father told Reuters that he had watched television nonstop for updates on the attack until he learned the devastating news from three Marines at his door. “He was born the same year it started, and ended his life with the end of this war,” Steve Nikoui said. He told The Daily Beast that his son loved his Marine family and wanted to “make a career out of this,” and added that he was frustrated that President Biden had sent his and others’ children into harm’s way. “They sent my son over there as a paper pusher and then had the Taliban outside providing security,” he said.

Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio.

Credit…U.S. Marines, via Reuters

Mr. Soviak grew up playing football in a small northern Ohio community where his death has left a “Maxton-sized hole” in his loved ones’ lives, his sister Marilyn wrote in an Instagram post. He was a Navy medic who had graduated from high school in 2017. “Everybody looked to Max in tough situations,” said Jim Hall, his high school football coach, who described Mr. Soviak as a deeply loyal friend. “He was energetic. He wore his emotions on his sleeve. He was a passionate kid. He didn’t hold anything back.”

Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tenn.

Credit…U.S. Army, via Associated Press

Staff Sergeant Knauss was “a motivated young man who loved his country,” his grandfather Wayne Knauss told WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tenn. “He was a believer so we will see him again in heaven.” He had been in the military for five years, his grandfather said, and his stepmother told the station that he had planned to move to Washington when he returned to the United States. One of his former teachers said he had been “quiet but confident” in school and that he had written an essay that said his role models were people who stand up against power to help people. “He wrote that nine years ago as a 14-year-old boy, not knowing the man he was going to become,” Angela Hoffman, the teacher, told the station.

Jack Healy and Dave Philipps contributed reporting.

Credit…Tom Brenner for The New York Times

With a final race to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan underway, Republican senators forcefully rebuked President Biden and his predecessor on Sunday for a decision that they warned could dangerously undermine two decades of American counterterroism investment.

The senators, among the loudest defenders of the war, praised American troops who lost their lives last week while helping evacuate Americans and their Afghan allies from the country by an Aug. 31 deadline. But they said the situation could have been avoided had President Donald J. Trump not struck a rapid withdrawal agreement with the Taliban or had Mr. Biden more rigorously planned for the war’s drawdown.

“This is one of the worst foreign policy decisions in American history, much worse than Saigon,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in the Senate. “Just because we decided to quit fighting doesn’t mean the terrorists go away, so they are still out there, they are invigorated, they are emboldened.”

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. McConnell argued that the United States’ approach to Afghanistan — including stationing thousands of troops in the country to prop up the Afghan military — had been working, preventing deadly attacks against the homeland at a relatively modest cost in recent years.

Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, called the deadly scramble playing out around the Kabul airport a “humanitarian and foreign policy tragedy.” He dinged Mr. Trump for agreeing to release thousands of Taliban prisoners and Mr. Biden for abandoning Bagram Air Base.

“Recognize that we are in the position we are in right now because of terrible decisions made by two administrations,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“The war is not over, we are just in a weaker position,” Mr. Romney continued. “The idea that somehow we could pull out of a dangerous place where radical violent jihadists are organizing, that we could pull out of that and that is going to stop them — that’s fantasy.”

Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska and a member of the Intelligence Committee, said of the Biden administration, “Their plan has basically been happy talk.”

“Joe Biden put our forces at risk by having no plan for how to evacuate,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We are absolutely at risk.”

Credit…Pool photo by Jonathan Brady

Britain announced on Sunday that the last of its soldiers and staff, including the country’s ambassador to Afghanistan, had boarded evacuation flights out of Kabul, essentially ending its two-decade military involvement in the war.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, praising their efforts in a national address posted to Twitter, said that the troops and officials had worked around the clock “to a remorseless deadline in harrowing conditions” to airlift more than 15,000 people, including Britons and Afghans, to safety in less than two weeks.

The ambassador, Laurie Bristow, who had stayed in Kabul, the Afghan capital, to help with the evacuation process, confirmed in a video on Sunday morning that he had landed at a military air base in Oxfordshire, northwest of London.

“We’ve had to leave Afghanistan for now, and the embassy will operate from Qatar for the time being,” he said, adding that London would put pressure on the Taliban to allow the transport to Britain of other Afghans and Britons left behind.

“We’ll do everything we can to protect the gains of the last 20 years,” Mr. Bristow added.

It was not immediately clear how many British citizens and Afghans with permission to travel to Britain were still in Afghanistan.

Ultimately, 150,000 British service members did a tour of duty in Afghanistan, 457 troops died, and thousands more were wounded, Mr. Johnson said. Two Britons and the child of a Briton were among those killed in a suicide bombing outside the gates of the international airport in Kabul on Thursday.

Critics have denounced the sudden withdrawal from the country, but Mr. Johnson said that Britain had followed the lead of the United States and that the efforts over the past two decades had saved lives.

“In the last 20 years, not a single terrorist attack has been launched from Afghan soil against the U.K. or any other Western country,” he said in a letter addressed to members of the armed forces, adding that troops had “kept Al Qaeda from our door for two decades.”

Britain would remain a presence in the region, Mr. Johnson said, adding that humanitarian assistance would double to 286 million pounds, or about $393 million. “We will use every lever we have — political, economic, diplomatic — to help the people of Afghanistan and to protect our country from harm,” he said.

Dan Bilefsky contributed reporting.

Tags Afghanistan, airport, Kabul, launched, Rockets, Strikes, Updates

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U.S. Strikes Explosive-Laden Car in Kabul

Post author By
Post date August 30, 2021

WASHINGTON – A US military drone attack blew up a vehicle laden with explosives in Kabul on Sunday, Defense Department officials said hours after President Biden warned that another terrorist attack on the Afghan capital’s airport was “very likely” .

The strike, which took place two days before the deadline for Mr Biden’s withdrawal from the country, removed an imminent threat to Hamid Karzai International Airport from the Khorasan Islamic State group, a US Central Command spokesman said. The group claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the airport on Thursday, in which 13 American soldiers and up to 170 civilians were killed.

The spokesman, Captain Bill Urban, said Central Command was aware of reports of civilian casualties following Sunday’s strike.

“We know that there was significant and powerful follow-up explosions as a result of the destruction of the vehicle, suggesting a large amount of explosive material inside that may have caused additional losses,” he said. “It is unclear what might have happened and we are investigating further.”

He added: “We would be deeply saddened by the possible loss of innocent people.”

Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said civilians were killed in the attack and a house was attacked. “We are investigating the reason for the air strike and the exact number of victims,” he said.

The attack followed a reprisal Friday for the suicide bombing, which was among the deadliest in nearly two decades since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Earlier on Sunday the US embassy in Kabul said there was a “specific, credible threat” to the airport site. State Department officials have issued several similar warnings in the past few days.

Five rockets were fired and launched by a counter-missile system at Hamid Karzai Airport Monday morning, a US official said, adding that there were no initial reports of casualties. The airfield remained open, said the officer.

Updated

Aug. 29, 2021, 7:31 p.m. ET

As American forces complete their withdrawal, the Pentagon has shifted its focus from screening and airlifting Afghan and American civilians to getting its personnel home. At the same time, US intelligence sources are refining destinations for possible drone attacks on suspected Islamic State fighters, particularly suicide bombers who want to attack the airport.

Sunday’s attack, carried out by an MQ-9 Reaper drone from a base in the United Arab Emirates, showed the extent to which US intelligence agencies have refined their target list, defense officials said. A Hellfire missile fired from the Reaper hit the vehicle about two miles from the airport, a military official said.

Based on the secondary explosions after the drone attack, the military estimated one to three people with explosive vests in the vehicle. There may be other explosives in the car that made it a vehicle-borne bomb in itself, two defense officials said.

Understanding the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

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In the past 24 hours, the US has evacuated approximately 2,000 people in military transport aircraft, including more than 100 American citizens. The military found that around 250 Americans were still in Kabul who had expressed a wish to leave the country.

Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, said in a speech on Fox News Sunday that the number of American citizens in Kabul could be close to 300. “There are some people who have chosen not to go so far and that is their right,” “he said.

“You will not be stuck in Afghanistan,” added Sullivan after Tuesday. “We’ll make sure we have a mechanism to get them out of the country in case they decide to come home in the future.”

Military officials said they had no evidence that Mr Biden would ask the military to stay beyond Tuesday to get more Americans or vulnerable Afghans out of the country.

However, Sunday’s drone attack showed how dangerous the last two days of America’s 20 Years War would be, Defense officials admitted. The attack follows Friday’s attack on a vehicle in Nangarhar province near the Pakistani border that Pentagon press secretary John F. Kirby said killed two “senior” Islamic State fighters – one as ” Planner ”and one as a“ mediator ”.

Tags ExplosiveLaden, Kabul, Strikes, vehicle

Politics

Biden to Attend Return of US Service Members Killed in Kabul Airport Assault

Post author By
Post date August 29, 2021

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware – President Biden landed in Delaware Sunday morning to join the families of the 13 U.S. military personnel who were killed in a bomb attack in Afghanistan last week.

Service members include 11 Marines, one Navy medic, and one Army member. They were killed by an Islamic State Khorasan bomber at the airport in the Afghan capital, Kabul, when they tried to help people flee the country before American troops completed their withdrawal.

The president and first lady, Jill Biden, met with families on Sunday morning. They then participated in 13 transfers – 11 for families who allowed the media to watch the remains of their loved ones returning home, and two for families who kept their transfers private.

The fallen soldiers who returned to Dover on Sunday were: Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City; Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, from Lawrence, Mass .; Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, from Sacramento, California; Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, California; Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha; Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Ind .; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Missouri; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyo .; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, California; Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, California; Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio; and Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tennessee.

Tags airport, Attack, attend, Biden, Kabul, Killed, members, return, Service

Politics

Biden vows to complete Afghanistan evacuation, search out ISIS leaders after Kabul assault

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Post date August 29, 2021

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden promised Thursday to complete the evacuation of Americans and their allies from Afghanistan after a deadly terrorist attack near Kabul airport killed more than a dozen US soldiers and many Afghans.

“We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will not let them stop our mission. We will continue the evacuation,” said Biden from the White House. “We’re going to save Americans, we’re going to get our Afghan allies, and the mission will go on. America won’t be intimidated.”

The US has approximately 5,400 military personnel helping with the evacuation effort in Kabul.

The US Central Command confirmed Thursday evening that the death toll had risen to 13 US soldiers and 18 injured after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive.

U.S. Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said a number of Afghan civilians were also killed in the explosion, but he was unable to provide an exact number. He added that according to the current assessment of the US military, the bomber was an IS fighter.

ISIS has admitted to the attack.

Addressing those responsible for the attack, the president said, “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”

“I will defend our interests and our people with every measure I command,” said Biden.

“I have also ordered my commanders to develop operational plans to attack ISIS-K facilities, commanders and facilities, indicating that the US had clues about the ISIS leaders who ordered the attack.

“We have reason to believe we know who they are,” Biden said, although he found the US wasn’t sure. “And we’ll find ways of our choosing, without major military operations, to get them wherever they are.”

The president warned on Tuesday that staying in Afghanistan longer than planned poses serious risks to foreign troops and civilians. He said ISIS-K, the Afghanistan-based branch of the terrorist group, posed a growing threat to the airport.

“I have repeatedly said that this mission is extraordinarily dangerous, and that is why I was so determined to limit the duration of this mission,” Biden repeated on Thursday.

Barack Obama points assertion on Kabul assault: ‘Heartbroken’

Post author By
Post date August 28, 2021

Former United States President Barack Obama is hosting a drive-in rally for Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden on October 27, 2020 in Orlando, Florida.

Eva Edelheit | Reuters

WASHINGTON – Former President Barack Obama made a formal statement on Afghanistan on Friday, his first since the U.S. military entered the final stages of its withdrawal from the country two weeks ago.

Obama said he and former first lady Michelle Obama were “heartbroken when they heard of the terrorist attack outside Kabul airport that killed and wounded so many US soldiers and Afghan men, women and children.”

“As president, nothing was more painful than mourning with the families of the Americans who gave their lives for our country,” he said.

Obama continued, “As President Biden said, these soldiers are heroes who have dangerous, selfless missions to save the lives of others.”

That line served as a rhetorical nod to Obama’s former vice president and essentially confirmed that Biden is now in charge.

Obama’s testimony came the same day that Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak’s family confirmed he was one of the dead.

“We also think of the families of the deceased Afghans, many of whom stood by America and were ready to risk anything for a chance for a better life,” said Obama.

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Obama is the last of the four US presidents who led the US 20-year war in Afghanistan to comment on the situation.

He is also the president who ordered an additional 30,000 US soldiers into the country in late 2009, a decision that his then Vice President Biden firmly opposed.

At the time, Obama believed that US firepower could sustain Afghanistan’s fragile, corrupt post-Taliban government.

Eleven years later, that government collapsed within hours when the Taliban retook Kabul on August 15 without firing a single shot.

Obama did not mention the entire evacuation effort in his statement on Friday. But earlier this year he said he strongly supported Biden’s decision to end America’s longest war.

“After nearly two decades of putting our troops in danger, it is time to recognize that we have accomplished all we can militarily and that it is time to bring our remaining troops home” Obama said on April 14th.

The two Republicans who led the war, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, have both openly opposed Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops – albeit in different ways.

Bush, who started the war shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, said he feared for the country’s women and girls who are facing almost certain repression due to the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law.

Bush in July also painted a bleak picture of what awaited Afghans who had worked for the US-led coalition over the past two decades.

“I think of all the interpreters and people who have helped not only the US forces but also the NATO forces, and they are simple, it seems like they are just being left behind to be butchered by these very brutal people and it breaks my “heart”, Bush told Deutsche Welle.

Trump has taken a different path, making a number of statements over the past few weeks that skew his own record and falsely accuse Biden of withdrawing American troops in front of US civilians. Trump has also tried to label refugees evacuated from Afghanistan as “terrorists”.

Tags Attack, Barack, heartbroken, Issues, Kabul, Obama, Statement

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