Tag: afghanistan

Gunmen Assassinate Female Former Afghan Lawmaker

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan said Sunday unknown assailants shot dead a female former lawmaker alongside her bodyguard in her home in the capital, Kabul.

Mursal Nabizada, 32, had been elected as a member of the national parliament before the Islamist Taliban seized power from the internationally backed Afghan government in August 2021 as all U.S.-led NATO troops withdrew.

A Kabul police spokesman, Khalid Zadran, said that a brother of the slain parliamentarian was also injured in the attack, which took place early Sunday.

Zadran said a “serious” investigation into the incident was under way to apprehend and bring the killers to justice.

Nabizada’s relatives called on the Taliban administration to arrest the killers, saying she had no enemies.

“I heard the gunfire and when we went down, they (attackers) had left and my daughter was lying on the ground with blood on the bed alongside my son. The guard was also killed,” local TOLO TV channel quoted Nabizada’s mother as saying.

Nabizada’s assassination marks the first time a politician from the ousted government has been killed since the Taliban takeover in August 2021. She was among the few female politicians and civil society activists who decided against fleeing Afghanistan after the hardline group regained control of the country.

No group immediately claimed responsibility.

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Detailed Report Exposes CIA-Backed ‘Zero Units’ In Afghanistan

In 2019, reporter Lynzy Billing returned to Afghanistan to research the murders of her mother and sister nearly 30 years earlier. Instead, in the country’s remote reaches, she stumbled upon the C.I.A.-backed Zero Units, who conducted night raids — quick, brutal operations designed to have resounding psychological impacts while ostensibly removing high-priority enemy targets.

So, Billing attempted to catalog the scale of civilian deaths left behind by just one of four Zero Units, known as the 02, over a four year period. 

The resulting report represents an effort no one else has done or will ever be able to do again. Here is what she found:

  • At least 452 civilians were killed in 107 raids. This number is almost certainly an undercount. While some raids did result in the capture or death of known militants, others killed bystanders or appeared to target people for no clear reason.
  • A troubling number of raids appear to have relied on faulty intelligence by the C.I.A. and other U.S. intelligence-gathering services. Two Afghan Zero Unit soldiers described raids they were sent on in which they said their targets were chosen by the United States.
  • The former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency acknowledged that the units were getting it wrong at times and killing civilians. He oversaw the Zero Units during a crucial period and agreed that no one paid a consequence for those botched raids. He went on to describe an operation that went wrong: “I went to the family myself and said: ‘We are sorry. … We want to be different from the Taliban.’ And I mean we did, we wanted to be different from the Taliban.”
  • The Afghan soldiers weren’t alone on the raids; U.S. special operations forces soldiers working with the C.I.A. often joined them. The Afghan soldiers Billing spoke to said they were typically accompanied on raids by at least 10 U.S. special operations forces soldiers. “These deaths happened at our hands. I have participated in many raids,” one of the Afghans said, “and there have been hundreds of raids where someone is killed and they are not Taliban or ISIS, and where no militants are present at all.”
  • Military planners baked potential “collateral damage” into the pre-raid calculus — how many women/children/noncombatants were at risk if the raid went awry, according to one U.S. Army Ranger Billing spoke to. Those forecasts were often wildly off, he said, yet no one seemed to really care. He told Billing that night raids were a better option than airstrikes but acknowledged that the raids risked creating new insurgent recruits. “You go on night raids, make more enemies, then you gotta go on more night raids for the more enemies you now have to kill.”

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ABC News Producer Missing Since FBI Raid, Was Writing Book About Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal

A star reporter for ABC News has been missing since an April 27 FBI raid at his Arlington, Virginia apartment.

Emmy award winner James Gordon Meek – a deep-dive journalist who was also a former senior counterterrorism adviser and investigator for the House Homeland Security Committee, abruptly quit his job of 9 years and “fell off the face of the earth,” after the raid, one of his colleagues told Rolling Stone.

At the time of the raid, Meek, 52, was co-authoring a now-published book about the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to ‘sources familiar with the matter,’ federal agents allegedly found classified information on Meek’s laptop during their raid – though one investigative journalist who had worked with him said it would be highly unusual for a reporter to do so.

“Mr. Meek is unaware of what allegations anonymous sources are making about his possession of classified documents,” said his lawyer, Eugene Gorokhov, in a statement. “If such documents exist, as claimed, this would be within the scope of his long career as an investigative journalist covering government wrongdoing. The allegations in your inquiry are troubling for a different reason: they appear to come from a source inside the government. It is highly inappropriate, and illegal, for individuals in the government to leak information about an ongoing investigation. We hope that the DOJ [Department of Justice] promptly investigates the source of this leak.”

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Ohio GOP House candidate has misrepresented military service

Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing “tough” conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to go more than 40 days without a shower.

Military documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request tell a different story.

They indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting.

Majewski’s account of his time in the military is just one aspect of his biography that is suspect. His post-military career has been defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the U.S. government and occasional financial duress.

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Marine wounded in Kabul suicide attack claims CIA WARNED them about bomber, watched him for two days and were told not to kill him in horrifying account of the blast that killed 13 US service members and hundreds of Afghans

Marines stationed at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate last year were give a description by the CIA of a suicide bomber two days before an explosion ripped through the chaotic evacuation, according to one of the troops wounded in the blast. 

They spotted him observing their position but were denied permission when they asked to open fire on him.

Thirteen U.S. service personnel and at least 170 Afghans died on August 26, 2021, when the Islamic State bomber detonated his explosives. 

Tristan Hirsch was a U.S. Marine stationed at the gate at the heart of the chaos.

He survived the blast and has since left military life, allowing him the freedom to describe the events leading up to the attack.

He described Taliban executions in the crush of people trying to escape, the presence of a second suicide bomber and claimed Marines had seen the first bomber in the area for two days – but were not allowed to kill him.

‘We knew about him two days prior to the attack,’ Hirsch, 24, told his local newspaper in California, the Chico Enterprise-Record.

‘We knew what he looked like. The CIA let us know; he looked exactly as they’d described him.’

They had been told that a man on a suicide mission, and preparing for heaven, would look different to the tired, hungry hordes who were besieging the airport looking for help to get out. They were on the look out for someone looking freshly showered with a well-trimmed beard. 

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Biden paid Taliban more than $1 billion over last year

In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s report that he ordered a military drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan, a report has emerged that Biden has paid, over the last year, about $1 billion to the Taliban.

That would be the extremist Islamist organization that took over Afghanistan when Biden last year abruptly pulled American soldiers out.

Biden left behind hundreds of Americans, thousands of America-supporting nationals who likely would be targeted by assassination squads for their work, as well as some $80 billion in American war machinery.

Now a report from Foreign Desk News explains that Biden has been sending, and plans to send more, money to the Taliban.

A columnist also pointed out that it is unlikely that an al-Qaida operative could have set up shop and be working in Kabul without the Taliban knowing that.

The report said American foreign aid might be going to the “wrong places,” including Afghanistan.

“Annually, the U.S. allocates over $51 billion in economic aid and military assistance. $25 billion comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), while the Department of Defense and Department of State are close behind. Over 20 percent of this aid is divided among four countries: Israel, Jordan, Afghanistan, and Egypt. While well intentioned, corruption, failing infrastructure, or even cultural misunderstandings can mean that U.S. aid causes more harm than good,” the report explained.

Regarding the Taliban, the report explained, “The U.S. has pledged an additional $55 million in aid to Afghanistan. Over the past fiscal year, this totals to over $1 billion to humanitarian, economic, and military assistance aid to Afghanistan. Foreign aid always comes with criticism, but especially so when the recipient is an enemy of the U.S. and a corrupt, extremist and repressive regime.

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After Thousands of Soldiers Died Fighting Them In Afghanistan, The US Now Backs The Taliban

Yes, you read that headline correctly. As we approach the one year anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan it seems as though the United States government is once again playing musical chairs with whom it considers friend or foe. At least this appears to be the case due to a recent article published by AntiWar.com, in which a yet to be named spokesman for the US State Department asserted that the US “does not support organized violent opposition to the Taliban” rule in Afghanistan.

First reported by The Foreign Desk, the statement comes as resistance fighters claim victory over Taliban forces in the Baghlan Province as conflict in the region continues.

After a two day skirmish between Taliban fighters and Afghanistan’s National Resistance Front (NRF) which resulted in heavy Taliban losses and the NRF taking control of Baghlan province’s easternmost district of Khost wa Fereng, in northern Afghanistan, the resistance fighters took to social media to celebrate their victory.

Speaking to The Foreign Desk, the State Department spokesperson said ―

“We are monitoring the recent uptick in violence closely and call on all sides to exercise restraint and to engage. This is the only way that Afghanistan can confront its many challenges,”

Continuing on, emphasis our own,

“We want to see the emergence of stable and sustainable political dispensation via peaceful means. We do not support organized violent opposition to the Taliban, and we would discourage other powers from doing so as well,”

Although this position has not yet been publicly acknowledged outside of this interview with The Foreign Desk, as the piece from Anti War notes this is an awkward position for the administration to be in. Considering the last few decades spent vilifying the Taliban as the epitome of evil and the ultimate adversary.

Although also as noted, prior to the 2001 invasion the Bush administration was actually allied with the Taliban, considering them a partner in the war on drugs.

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US spending to counter Russian war effort exceeds first 5 years of war costs in Afghanistan

The Biden administration and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pledged to counter Russia’s war in Ukraine and the threat it poses to European security, and the funds so far committed to Kyiv already exceed U.S. costs for the first five years in Afghanistan. 

The Biden administration on Friday announced another $400 million military drawdown package to Ukraine as it attempts to fend off Russian advances.

The latest package was reportedly tailored in coordination with Ukrainian officials for what they specifically need on the front lines and comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory over the eastern Luhansk region. 

Heavy artillery like howitzers and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) are among the big-ticket items that Ukraine has said it needs to target Russian command and control hotspots that sit behind the front lines. 

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Afghanistan Watchdog: Biden Admin ‘Unreasonably Refusing to Provide Information’

John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), wrote a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, and the heads of several congressional committees on Wednesday complaining that the Biden administration abruptly stopped cooperating with his investigations after he issued a report critical of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“It is my duty to report that the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are unreasonably refusing to provide information and assistance requested by SIGAR,” Sopko wrote, citing the relevant laws requiring those agencies to cooperate.

Sopko documented a “repeated and continuing refusal to provide information and assistance requested by my office,” especially on three sensitive matters: the swift collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan after President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal of military forces in August 2021, compliance with “laws and regulations prohibiting the transfer of funds to the Taliban,” and humanitarian aid for the Afghan people.

Sopko pointed out that Congress clearly and unambiguously required the State Department and USAID to cooperate with his investigations when his office was established, and three previous administrations have done as Congress directed.

“It is shocking that State and USAID officials are choosing at this particular juncture to violate the law, obstruct SIGAR’s oversight work, and refuse to cooperate with our oversight requests,” he wrote.

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