Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

[shravanp]

Doesn't Afghanistan have Lithium mines?

Enough to make it the lithium capital of the world. In the words of then president Hamid Karzai in 2007.

If and when that happens (i.e Afghanistan a lithium capital of the world), what happens to Pakistan? Would they get the share of $$ ?

[Ambar]

Someone in MEA is smoking some potent hashish if what ABP is reporting is true.

https://news.abplive.com/videos/news/in ... es-1476170

The Taliban is moving towards capturing Kabul. Meanwhile, as per the information received from high sources of the Government, India can give shelter to people coming to India from Afghanistan. In view of the growing threat of Taliban, there has been a significant increase in visa requests to come to India from Afghanistan. In view of the growing threat of Taliban, there has been a significant increase in visa requests to come to India from Afghanistan.

We literally have millions of illegal bangladeshis, rohingyas even hundreds of thousands of pakis inside our country already. As much as it hurts to see ordinary afghanis once again live under the taliban, we cannot risk a further threat to security by inviting thousands of afghanis to live in India. Btw, there are already over 40,000 afghani refugees who live in the NCR region alone. Also many who came during the war years of 80s and 90s never went back.

The images coming out of Kabul vindicates what i said yesterday that we must not bring in anyone except for the Afghan citizens who have worked at our consulates, embassy and our agencies. In video after video one can see it is mostly young men who are rushing to get into military and passenger aircrafts to get out of Afghanistan. These young men are just economic migrants, the same ones who pay smugglers to get them over to Europe. The two IAF C17s that are yet to return must only allow verified families to board and no one else.

Also need to be extra vigilant because the taliban seems to be very cool about letting people get on the planes. Despite being right outside the airport they are not stopping people from trying to leave and it is entirely possible they may push its own people with refugees.

[Ambar]

The failure of US foreign policy in Afghanistan can be summed by the silence of their media to even ask basic questions on Pakistan's role in Afghanistan. Atleast in the Bush Jr's era we would routinely read journalists asking Pakistan's support to the Haqqani faction who were for a long time responsible for most terrorist acts in Afghanistan. None of what taliban has achieved over the last month would have been possible without Pakistan orchestrating the whole thing from the beginning to the end.

[Aditya_V]

Meanwhile Indian diplomatic staff and 150 ITBP personal are yet to be evacuated- hope its done tonight

[Manish_P]

Enough to make it the lithium capital of the world. In the words of then president Hamid Karzai in 2007.

If and when that happens (i.e Afghanistan a lithium capital of the world), what happens to Pakistan? Would they get the share of $$ ?

The Jernails would get their cut and might pass on some left over to their selected politicians.. the ISI has in the past and will generate revenue from facilitating the afghan drug trade..

[chanakyaa]

News headlines are hot and images are vivid (airport pictures/videos are sadly hilarious to watch), but what remains unsurprising is the outcome, which was pretty much set when bunnies started negotiations in Doha. In summary, they said that they hate democratic elections (b'cas it did not work for Afg.), Eeslamic emirate is preferred governance (rights of people and women within eslam1c framework), and yoos troops out. Except some odd incidents all the demands have been met and power transitioned (or about to) without bl00dshed (hope). With 8 billion of foreign reserves and plenty of gold in the ground (not counting other minerals), there is plenty of moolah to work with for the bunnies. For any country to operate normally, things like access to international banking, mobile/internet services, airlines, computer connectivity etc. (to name few) are a must, and if the country is not sanctioned, it means bunnies have blessings to go ahead with taking the reign of Afg. Rest is all noise.

Afghanistan: Background and U.S. Policy: In Brief (June 2021)

[kit]

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... f-lithium/

Afghanistan enjoys an estimated $1-trillion in mineral wealth, including stores of copper, iron ore, precious gems, gold and lithium among other things. The first challenge seems to have been met: valuable stuff is in the ground, and in quantity. The next challenge is to get it out.

Afghans had hoped to see $1-billion in annual revenue and at least 8,500 direct jobs and 30,000 indirect jobs from the mining sector by 2017, comprising the Mes Aynak copper mine ($350-million) 40 kilometres southeast of Kabul, the Hajigak iron ore mine near Bamiyan ($550-million) and $150-million from hydrocarbons and gemstones.

Various national policy documents and programmes laid down the path to these developments. The US Geological Service collected data on assets during the 2000s, building on a wealth of material gathered during the Soviet period.

Afghanistan’s mineral sector seemed ready for take off. Yet rather than benefit from this wealth, major investments have stalled, leaving warlords richer but the fiscus high and dry. Currently, the government’s overall revenue is just half ($2-billion) of its budget, the rest being made up by donors.

Take Mes Aynak, which attracted a Chinese investor back in 2007. The deposit is said to be the second-largest copper body in the world, with an estimated 5.5 million tons of high-grade ore. The contract awarded to the Chinese was worth $2.9-billion, the largest in Afghanistan’s history, and included the construction of a 400-megawatt power plant, a coal mine, a processing plant and railway links. But, 13 years later, the investment was frozen.

Some speculate this impasse was a result of US pressure, others cite the lack of transparency in the deal from the outset, while still others blame the decline in the copper price.

There were other concerns. Mes Aynak is a major archaeological site, with a Silk Road-era settlement comprising 400 Buddha statues, stupas and a 40-hectare monastery complex, which, like Bamiyan to the north, is a jewel among the “more than 500” Buddhist sites countrywide.

To ensure security around the Mes Aynak mine site, the government deployed 1,750 policemen with more than 80 checkpoints and security towers. More than $500-million has been spent by the government on security there since 2007. Over 150 security guards have been killed, even though the Taliban has explicitly promised not to target Mes Aynak or other infrastructure projects.

Minister of Mines and Petroleum Mohammad Haroon Chakhansuri says a lack of legal capacity and inconsistency over the last 15 years has blighted investment. A lack of transparency has not helped, though change is promised. The ministry has 2,666 staff, he notes, and an annual budget of $26-million, against mining revenue of just $24.5-million.

“At least 1,200 staff are in technical positions, but very few are qualified. Most have a school certificate. Our hydrocarbon specialist is an agriculture graduate and our laboratory manager has a 9th-grade school certificate,” explains the minister.

It is not surprising that Mes Aynak was awarded to the Chinese consortium over a rival Canadian bidder on the basis of its promises to pay a royalty of 19%, he says, plus a forward payment of $850-million, while building the railway, processing plant and power station.

“We did not have the capacity then to scrutinise this,” he admits. Fast forward 12 years and the Chinese company wants to amend “around 50 or more articles of the contract, including reducing royalties to 2.5%, forward payment of just $450-million in instalments, no railway, no power-station and no processing plant”.

Elsewhere, contractual challenges have slowed the Hajigak iron ore facility, while the minister, Wahidullah Shahrani, who presided over the award of a cement deal in Herat “to the Iranians”, was jailed on corruption charges over the deal. Other big projects are proceeding slowly, including the hydrocarbon basins of Katawaz, Helmand and Herat.

Attracting mining investment today is a relatively straightforward process which governments seek to make fraught by their own greed. However understandable that might be, it is a sure way to put off the best long-term investor, one actually intent on developing (rather than speculating on) the endowment.

The formula for attracting long-term foreign investors is well-known in the copper sector.

[Ambar]

@Chanakyaji, that was the plan in Doha all along between the US-Pakistan-Qatar-Bunnies to have a peaceful, formal transfer of power and for US to have a graceful exit. But at the nth minute bunnies turned the whole plan upside down by engaging in military campaign and steamrolling through cities and throwing the entire country into chaos. Now that US has been utterly humiliated, both the whitehouse and the pentagon thoroughly panned for their ill-thought out plan and a huge refugee crisis in the making, US will look even weaker (although i dont know if it can look anymore weaker than it does these days) if they shake hand with bunnies and let their islamic jihad flag fly in the Afghan embassy in DC. While the bunnies would like nothing more than billions in aid money, and they'll keep up the media charade going for as long as possible, it is only a matter of time before the real cavemen among them start stoning women in public squares.

As for the "trillions in mines" in Afghanistan, well, like i said the taliban v2.0 are outdoing pakis in pakiness, after all the pakis have been selling the "trillions in mines and gas" to gullible investors and foreign media for years now, looks like Afghanistan will attempt to do the same.

[rkirankr]

If and when that happens (i.e Afghanistan a lithium capital of the world), what happens to Pakistan? Would they get the share of $$ ?

The Jernails would get their cut and might pass on some left over to their selected politicians.. the ISI has in the past and will generate revenue from facilitating the afghan drug trade..

Overall enough money to destabilize India

[Mort Walker]

The immediate concern for India will be TSP RATS getting their hands on huge troves of small arms, ammunition, artillery, and helos left behind by the US and ANA.

[sanjaykumar]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... he-capital


These are horrific scenes.

The citizenship amendment act is a mistake. India needs to airlift these desperate people out of there. A couple of hundred thousand more can be absorbed by India, lets not deny that. Many of these people will be dead within a week. Thanks BBC for showing their faces.

[nachiket]

Meanwhile Indian diplomatic staff and 150 ITBP personal are yet to be evacuated- hope its done tonight

I am a little perturbed that we have waited this long to evacuate our people. It was quite obvious what was about to happen in the past few days. Not sure what made us wait this long.

[Maria]

Meanwhile Indian diplomatic staff and 150 ITBP personal are yet to be evacuated- hope its done tonight

I am a little perturbed that we have waited this long to evacuate our people. It was quite obvious what was about to happen in the past few days. Not sure what made us wait this long.

Some reasons:

1) They didn't expect the Afghan polity/ANA to fold the way it did

2) The number of Indians in Afghanistan must be huge along with the colossal responsibility of verifying the antecedents of Indians fleeing Afg

3) Burning huge piles of documents/dossiers

4) Maximise the intake of haft mewa as they are prolly thinking they will not return in a long time

[CalvinH]

Meanwhile Indian diplomatic staff and 150 ITBP personal are yet to be evacuated- hope its done tonight

The collapse of Kabul took everyone by surprise including US who evacuated their Embassy staff to the airport in hurry and sent additional 1000 soldiers to protect them on the Military side of the airport. People were expecting a fight but ANA just folded up.

If it wasn't for bunnies giving safe passage out everyone a lot of people would be dead or held hostage. May be that was the deal behind ANA giving them a walkover.

[Ambar]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... he-capital


These are horrific scenes.

The citizenship amendment act is a mistake. India needs to airlift these desperate people out of there. A couple of hundred thousand more can be absorbed by India, lets not deny that. Many of these people will be dead within a week. Thanks BBC for showing their faces.

Please see the videos again , majority are teens/20 something youngmen , some of them giggling and laughing as they try to climb on to planes. They are economic migrant and not those fleeing taliban. Our first priority is to secure our embassy and consulate staff, ITBP, Indian citizens who were working in Afghanistan on various projects, Afghan citizens and their families who were employed by GoI and private Indian companies. I dont think we'll be able to help anyone but if we do then only families should be helped and not military age young men.

[AshishA]

^^I think he was being sarcastic.

[ricky_v]

In modern day America it often feels that all roads lead back to 9/11

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/wi ... nce-191732

August 13, 2021

For one, scores of fighters have pledged allegiance to former vice president and Northern Alliance leader, Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum in the northern provinces. In the key city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which is surrounded by the Taliban and my current location, it’s not the Afghan Forces that are patrolling the city. It’s the young, public uprising forces most visible on the crowded and bustling streets, still teeming with life despite the uncertainty.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/1 ... he-taliban

The fall on Saturday of Mazar-i-Sharif, the country’s fourth-largest city, which Afghan forces and two powerful former strongmen had pledged to defend, hands the Taliban control over all of northern Afghanistan, confining the Western-backed government to the centre and east.

Atta Mohammad Noor, also a Northern Alliance commander, is again governing his new generation of fighters in the north.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south ... taleban-in

Noor, who had been commanding local militia forces when Mazar-i-Sharif fell to the Taleban, said both he and Dostum were safe and blamed the fall of the city on a "conspiracy".

"Despite our firm resistance, sadly, all the government and the #ANDSF equipments were handed over to the #Taliban as a result of a big organised & cowardly plot," Noor wrote on Twitter. "They had orchestrated the plot to trap Marshal Dostum and myself too, but they didn't succeed."

And in and around the Panjshir Valley, some 600 forces are under the tutelage of Ahmad Massoud, son of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud—a pivotal Northern Alliance chieftain strategically killed by the Taliban just days before the September 11 attacks.

https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2021/ ... liban.html

I am willing and ready to forgive the blood of my father for the sake of peace in Afghanistan and security and stability in Afghanistan,” said Massoud, adding that he and other Afghans are not willing to “give in to the will of terrorism”, but ready to create "an inclusive government with the Taliban” through political negotiations.

[rsingh]

Guys live SC session. Afganistan . Interesting to hearRussians and Chinese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owAJ8oG ... tedNations

[Aditya_V]

It is clear Chinese money has gone through ISI to the key players in Afghanistan but it will not last beyond 3-6 months when this whole scheme unravels, many "liberal" sections in the west are involved in this scam.

[shyamd]

Now that Kabul has been almost taken, ISI and Taleban are now on the look out for NDS officials.. so far one has been murdered..

US bringing in more troops to secure the airport as things getting out of hand.. UK were sending 800

There is an international coalition building to put sanctions on Afghanistan and not to recognize the taliban. Wait and watch… moves are afoot

With convicted terrorists on the lose US/NATO will have to take some steps

Former NDS guys have started their armed resistance. This is an indigenous movement with little to no external support

[Cyrano]

Reports of a U.S. Air Force packed one C-17 cargo jet with roughly 800 people and flew them to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Seems worse than the Saigon kick.
Or shall we say records being set under the Biden administration ?

[kancha]

Shared some thoughts on the emerging situation in Afghanistan and implications on India.
On the American ROUT from Afghanistan (Blog Link)
Twitter Link

Firstly, let me plug a blog post from Feb 2020 when there was talk about Indian troops going to Afg. With the rapid rout of US military in Afg, I think that folks who were thinking about sending Indian troops there would have by now changed their opinions. Here’s that blog post – Indian Troops in Afghanistan

Yup, in case you noticed, I used the word ROUT for what has happened to the US military in Afghanistan. To that end, I’ll just let these two pics – one from Saigon in 1975 and one from Kabul earlier today, make my point.

Sneaking out of their biggest military base in the middle of the night without bothering to tell the hosts didn’t exactly look like a victory march out of Afghanistan now, did it? Well .. but they ARE the strongest military in the world, atleast in their own opinion, no?

Of course, in terms of hardware, software & manpower, they do make a compelling case for being the strongest that there might be.

But in terms of how their administration put these assets to use, one surely shakes his head, wondering about the logic they might have used to justify it!

.

But moving on to what might happen next, I’d say the decade of the 90s does offer a template of some sorts. Even though there are newer stakeholders this time round, the principal actors remain unchanged – Taliban and Pakistan Army.
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Well, after Kabul fell in the mid 90s, came a wave of terror attacks around the world, mostly on American targets, ending up ultimately with the 9/11 bombings that brought the US back into the region with Operation Enduring Freedom.

Unfortunately, the operation was neither Enduring, nor did it bring about any Freedom!

The reason for that has already been mentioned above in the blog post.

In the days immediately after 9/11, America had famously asked Musharraf whether he was with them or against them. I guess they finally know the answer to that question atleast, even if at the cost of more than a trillion dollars and so many lives.

Of course, India too witnessed a surge of terror attacks in Kashmir as well as outside in rest of the country as a cocky Pakistan, drunk on the recent ‘victory’ in Afghanistan, channelized part of the terror machine towards us.

I remember reading newspapers during college days and for some time after that in the 90s, talking about Afghans and even Somalis fighting in Kashmir. At that time I couldn’t really fathom the reason why. But it became amply clear later on as I read more into the subject.

And then with the US finally back in Afghanistan, came the J&K Assembly bombing, the Parliament attack, the Kaluchak Massacre, countless bombings in the hinterland and finally the 26/11 attacks. Part of the reason why India didn’t take overt military action against Pakistan after the Parliament, the Kaluchak and the 26/11 attacks was thought to be the presence of Americans in Afghanistan and how diverting Packie military away from ‘helping’ them might impact their own war.

Well, the results are there for all to see.

Mind you, I’m not saying that there won’t be any more terror attacks inside India, or on Indian interests abroad. In fact, knowing whatever little I do about the Paakis, I am actually COUNTING upon them to oblige sooner rather than later, of course with a fig leaf of deniability.

The euphoria of a ‘victory’ in Afghanistan is likely to result in a terror attack or two on India in the coming days and months. But then, what comes back towards them in the aftermath is perhaps a topic for another blog post some day.

However, I am willing to bet that sovereign Indian territory stands a good chance at expanding by whatever degree it does, in case of a future attempt at being a bit too clever by the Brown Panted ones.

But then, it is just a personal opinion!

But then, how might this affect India, is the question that bugs me at times.

Well, the answer that I am coming round to, is that it hardly has any material effect on India!

In fact, it will divert Packie energies away from own borders for the near future atleast, as they try to get the game to settle down to their advantage before looking elsewhere. It was easy in the 90s since Russia and China had absolutely no role to play.

But now, the USA, though having run away from the immediate battlefield, is unlikely to let the new benefactors of Taliban have an easy run, especially if they are the ones that bow to a certain Mr Xi.

Once the dust settles after the battle to formally capture Kabul is finally over, our brown panted ‘friends’ might just discover that they are caught bang in the middle of a shadow war between their two biggest clients!

This possibility of a shadow war leads me further to a conspiracy theory.

Feel free to dismiss it as a figment of my imagination, but I’ll still say it out loud here because .. well .. I can!

What are the odds that the sheer quantum of fully serviceable American military equipment falling into the hands of the Taliban isn’t merely a coincidence, but instead, a ploy to make things more difficult for the next superpower that tries its luck in Afghanistan?

However, that STILL doesn’t take away the fact the the USA has literally run away from battle.

To that end, I’d rather say that Afghanistan is indeed a strategic depth .. but for India!

Yup, feel free to read that again.

An Afghanistan that sucks in Packie energies and resources is always good for us. It will continue to be so for atleast another year or so, if not more.

Of course, there will be some spillover across the LoC into India .. perhaps even in the hinterland. But then, all that will serve to do is to give another reason for the Indian military to overtly punish Pakistan as has been the trend lately.

A terror factory will be of hardly any use in case the Indian Army or the Air Force or the Navy come calling across the LoC or even the IB. They’ve shown it before during the surgical strikes and the Balakot attack, followed by the shooting down of the PAF F-16.

I’m sure the Packies know this.

Or maybe in their hubris, they might still try and overreach .. who knows.

But one thing is for sure – it is China that is going to have another front active, in addition to the Himalayan front and the South China Sea / Taiwan fronts!

THAT is something which needs to be looked out for.

THAT is something that I am eagerly awaiting to see happen & then to see how things progress from thereon.

THAT is something which I wish to see Packies try to turn into their favour with both their baaps as I mentioned earlier!

THIS is what the game is in the medium to long run in the days, weeks, months and years to come, as the wheels of history churn towards another turning. And as they say, wheels of history require blood to give them motion.

Thus far it was American blood.

Will it be Chinese next?

Oh, btw, these beautiful visuals of the Chinooks that I tweeted earlier in this blog post just led me to thinking where will these Chinooks go after evacuating the Americans .. Will they not go across the Durand Line into Pakistan?

Especially since American planes targetting Taliban continue to freely fly over Pakistani airspace even today?

Btw, those who are aware of the Kunduz Airlift might also want to draw some parallels with this currently underway evacuation of American personnel from Afghanistan!

Yup, give it a thought and you might find some newer insights as well!

As far as India goes, people getting alarmed at what might happen to us now, may want to relax a bit because what is fated, must be endured, but all I’ll offer is that we’ve endured much worse at a time when we were much weaker and much isolated and yet we lived to tell our tale.

So I conclude this thread by offering this single statement: The 2020s are a bit .. different!

[Ambar]

Now that Kabul has been almost taken, ISI and Taleban are now on the look out for NDS officials.. so far one has been murdered..

US bringing in more troops to secure the airport as things getting out of hand.. UK were sending 800

There is an international coalition building to put sanctions on Afghanistan and not to recognize the taliban. Wait and watch… moves are afoot

With convicted terrorists on the lose US/NATO will have to take some steps

Former NDS guys have started their armed resistance. This is an indigenous movement with little to no external support

If you are talking about the Amrullah Saleh faction in northern Afg then it has the support of Russia, Tajakistan and some say even China. If so then RAW and MEA have bungled up because historically northern faction was very close to India. It increasingly makes sense now why Russia conducted a military exercise with Tajakistan last month and China this month.

The Chinese state media on twitter are openly mocking the US and threatening Taiwan. In their latest tweet, they have warned Taiwan to extract lessons from US' colossal failure in Afghanistan and the chaos they are leaving behind.

[shyamd]

LINK

People familiar with the development said the government will not put the lives of its staffers at the Indian embassy and Indian citizens in Kabul at any risk.

A fleet of the C-17 Globemaster military transport aircraft of the IAF was kept on standby to undertake evacuation missions. One C-17 Globemaster was sent to the war-torn country on Sunday and returned to Delhi with Indian citizens on Monday morning, while another took off on Monday from the Hindon air force station in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad but had to be diverted to Tajikistan because of the chaos at the Kabul airport. Later, it landed at the airport to evacuate citizens.

Quoting government officials, Hindustan Times reported that at least 200 Indian officials, including diplomats and security, are waiting to be back to India. “Taking the staff from the embassy compound to the airport is also a challenge," HT quoted an official on condition of anonymity.

46 people + sensitive equipment have returned in the first IAF flight.

[shyamd]

If you are talking about the Amrullah Saleh faction in northern Afg then it has the support of Russia, Tajakistan and some say even China. If so then RAW and MEA have bungled up because historically northern faction was very close to India. It increasingly makes sense now why Russia conducted a military exercise with Tajakistan last month and China this month.

The Chinese state media on twitter are openly mocking the US and threatening Taiwan. In their latest tweet, they have warned Taiwan to extract lessons from US' colossal failure in Afghanistan and the chaos they are leaving behind.

GOI nat sec establishment has been preparing for this for a while and is in regular contact with a number of individuals one of which is Saleh. Discussion was ongoing since Feb.

[vera_k]

The citizenship amendment act is a mistake. India needs to airlift these desperate people out of there. A couple of hundred thousand more can be absorbed by India, lets not deny that. Many of these people will be dead within a week. Thanks BBC for showing their faces.

Huh? The CAA enables Indian citizenship for people who arrived before 2014. Unless these people are able to time travel, its not particularly relevant here.

India should formally provide for something like the Temporary Protected Status provided by US law. Ability to move to the country, but not a path to citizenship without a further law passed by Parliament. Probably necessary to get a framework in place in advance of the predicted wave of climate forced displacements.

[ritesh]

Afghan military did not lack spine. They have no reason to fight taliban. This is the real truth in my opinion. Whole world is trying to teach civilizational values to the people who don't see any value in it.

The difference between "didn't" and "couldn't" is just academic because the end result of both is the same. In the end, the ANA just cut and ran.

It matters not a whit if the ANA "soldiers" thought that ammijan was calling out to them to come and get dinner so they ran or they pissed their shalwars and ran but run they surely did. They are not civilians who have a choice but professional soldiers, well trained in the profession of arms and sworn to protect their country and people

The afghans took with both hands from everyone while the going was good. It is the ummah trait of deep entitlement and it naturally feeds into another great ummah belief that everyone has wronged them since time immemorial and so they are owed.

they lie by religion (taqiya), cheat by culture, grow narcotics and smuggle them around the world driven by greed, trapping and making addicts out of kids and killing them in the thousands.

the afghans will now look for the next fool to step in and look after them

Well well. They have shown the world what type of martial err napunsak quoam they are.

To fall like nine pins. Oh what a shame or sham it is.

As Puspendraji always says jinho ne talwar ke jorr par shalwar pehanli...

[ritesh]

Meanwhile Indian diplomatic staff and 150 ITBP personal are yet to be evacuated- hope its done tonight

Hope they are armed to teeth and with no strings attached.

[chetak]

Meanwhile Indian diplomatic staff and 150 ITBP personal are yet to be evacuated- hope its done tonight

Hope they are armed to teeth and with no strings attached.

get the 150 ITBP personnel out of there first.

the diplomutts and spooks can wait, a few here and there will not be missed

[rsingh]

IAF C17 Globemaster as landed in Kabul.

[Cyrano]

Videos in SM of people who clung to a USAF C17 plane falling to their death from 100s feet of height as the plane takes off, oblivious of these poor souls! So no security on the tarmac side either, fear worse mishaps if engines or undercarriage are compromised.

One reason for this mad rush is UN mandating that no afghan refugee should be turned away or deported. Creates more problems that it solves.

[chetak]

via whatsapp


Kissinger's famous comment "it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal" has played out in the most brutal fashion in Kabul in the last 24 hours

[chetak]

Videos in SM of people who clung to a USAF C17 plane falling to their death from 100s feet of height as the plane takes off, oblivious of thèse poor souls!

One reason for this mad rush is UN mandating that no afghan refugee should be turned away or deported. Creates more problems that it solves.

what was the western world doing when the UN was comfortably snoring away these past decades, turning a blind eye to the situation in afghanistan and now, suddenly, the UN wakes up and starts "mandating"

[shyamd]

US despatching another 1000 to secure the airport. GOI reporting that there are 3,000 nationals awaiting repatriation...!! Not impossible but runway needs to be secured.

Turkish, US, UK troops working to secure the runway.

The reason why ANA "melted away" or surrendered was because they were told by both Taleban and their own Chain of command that a "transitional" govt was agreed... So some of them were following orders. this means ISI bought off key people in Chain of Command.

I am told US intel had told Biden that the Afghan govt would survive for at least 2-3 years - this was the basis of the withdrawal decision. This then went down to weeks and then 2-3 days.....

Also they believed that PRC wanted US to waste time resources and effort in Afghanistan...

[vimal]

The reason why ANA "melted away" or surrendered was because they were told by both Taleban and their own Chain of command that a "transitional" govt was agreed... So some of them were following orders. this means ISI bought off key people in Chain of Command.

In that case, well played indeed!
Best war is with no battles.

[Aditya_V]

Notice how BBC, CNN never report outrageous statements from I'm the dim or Musharaf or any Paki leader.

[vimal]

Notice how BBC, CNN never report outrageous statements from I'm the dim or Musharaf or any Paki leader.

They don't even mention Islam or anything close. Taliban is just Taliban.

[Sicanta]

Experience of Afghan Central Gov

https://twitter.com/aahmady/status/1427 ... 36674?s=20


Ata Mohammad Noor

https://twitter.com/Atamohammadnoor/sta ... 09888?s=20

[Ambar]

Notice how BBC, CNN never report outrageous statements from I'm the dim or Musharaf or any Paki leader.

Its CNN so not surprising. The burqa clad CNN motorhome below reported earlier this morning that "Afghanis are changing "death to america!" while being friendly!"

[Srikanth P]

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 374236.cms

Looks like we still have a significant contingent in Kabul...