Officials: Afghanistan Does Not Need a Constitution

Regarding political party activities, the deputy minister of justice noted that given the current situation, there is no need for parties to be active.

A Ministry of Justice representative said Afghanistan does not require a constitution and can resolve its issues with only the application of Islamic law.

In a press conference, Abdul Karim Haider, the deputy minister of justice, stated that Hanafi law serves as the framework for resolving people’s problems.

“The holy Quran, the Sunnah of Mohammad (PBUH), and the jurisprudence of every Islamic country are the basis and the text of the constitution in general and in detail,” Haidar said.

“A constitution for any government in the modern era is a crucial and a basic requirement. No government in the modern era can function without a constitution,” said Fazel Hadi Wazin, a university lecturer.

Regarding political party activities, the deputy minister of justice noted that given the current situation, there is no need for parties to be active.

Speaking of the work being done by women lawyers in the country, he said that all women would be provided their rights under Islamic law.

“The Islamic Emirate will grant women the rights that Islam has granted them–when the conditions are favorable,” Haider said.

According to ministry officials, the ministry is prepared to prepare the constitution in accordance with Islamic law at the Prime Minister’s request.

“We are awaiting Amirul Muminin’s direction. when he directs the creation of law. The Hanafi law system, the Quran, and the Sunnah of Mohammad (PBUH) are its sources, thus we are confident that a comprehensive law will be established quickly to address everyone’s concerns, Haidar stated.

The Ministry of Justice added that this organization’s revenue over the previous year exceeded 42 million Afghanis.

Officials: Afghanistan Does Not Need a Constitution
read more

Don’t Believe the Generals

A T-shirt that was popular with veterans for much of America’s nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan showed a helicopter in flight with the caption we were winning when I left. U.S. generals seem to be the only ones who didn’t get the joke. On the first anniversary of our botched withdrawal, the military leaders most responsible for America’s disastrous outcome in Afghanistan have continued to loudly insist that the war was winnable when they were in charge, and that responsibility for the debacle must lie with someone else.

Retired Generals Frank McKenzie and Joseph Votel, the last two commanders of U.S. Central Command, which includes Afghanistan, recently made the case that America should have stayed indefinitely, arguing that the pullout was a mistake and that America could have defended its interests—and kept the Taliban at bay—with a small residual force of a few thousand soldiers. And in The Atlantic, the retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus, who commanded the war in Afghanistan after presiding over the surge that helped bring temporary stability to Iraq, wrote that more than a decade ago “we had finally established the right big ideas and overarching strategy.” But the problem, he maintained, was that America did not have the stomach for a “sustained, generational commitment.”

A sustained, generational commitment? The United States spent more than $2 trillion in Afghanistan and sacrificed the lives of 2,461 service members over those two decades. And in that time, the top brass mostly got their way. President Barack Obama caved to his generals, agreeing to a substantial troop surge in a war he was trying to end. President Donald Trump did the same on a smaller scale, entering office on a promise to end the war but eventually agreeing to a “mini-surge” and deferring a full withdrawal to his successor.

The outcome of America’s commitment was an Afghan government and military that couldn’t hold out long enough even for U.S. forces to leave with a semblance of dignity. The “right big ideas” deployed by a generation of generals proved to be empty slogans: “government in a box,” “money as a weapons system,” “ink spots.” All of these were tactical approaches or overly simplistic frameworks that ignored the nuances of Afghan politics and the reality of attempting to modernize a fractured country that was mired in corruption and a continuing civil war.

This myth of a sustainable stalemate is contradicted by a mountain of evidence and experience. U.S. casualties in the Afghan War’s last years remained low because of the Doha Agreement, whatever its flaws. The Kabul government’s forces that had to fight and win the war were losing “gradually and then suddenly,” as Ernest Hemingway described bankruptcy.

By 2017, Afghan army and police recruiting began to dry up, a result of high casualties, corruption, and mistreatment, as well as successful Taliban propaganda that capitalized on those failures. Later that year, the U.S. government classified Afghan security forces’ size and stopped collecting district stability data, a fraught but valuable metric of security. These were not the hallmarks of a winning campaign. General McKenzie admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2018 that Afghan security forces were suffering unsustainable attrition. And when Afghan forces failed in battle with the tools and training we had given them, the answer from the generals was not to shift our approach but always to ask for more time and more money.

In June 2011, a full decade before last year’s total withdrawal, President Obama announced a major troop reduction in Afghanistan and a future “responsible end” to the war. Trump successfully campaigned in 2016 on a pullout promise; as president, he signed the February 2020 Doha Agreement that would deliver just that. President Joe Biden ordered an Afghanistan policy review, and then chose to delay the withdrawal but ultimately honor the Doha terms.

In the face of all these signals that the U.S. intervention was coming to an end, America’s generals seemed to think they could keep a small war in Afghanistan going forever. If the war didn’t end, hard questions about the fundamental flaws in execution never had to be acknowledged. U.S. military leaders could continue to pretend that they had achieved something in the country.

As for the inevitable chaos of the withdrawal itself, the U.S. State Department deserves most of the blame for the shameful condition of the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program, which prevented tens of thousands of our Afghan partners from getting out of the country safely, and the White House must own some final operational and timing decisions in Kabul. But the bulk of the blame for the failures of analysis, planning, and execution still rests on the shoulders of our military and its leaders. They built a house of cards in Afghanistan. As years of reporting and research have shown, whether it would come crashing down was never in doubt; it was only a matter of when and how.

Defeat is a bitter pill for any army to swallow. And unfortunately, blaming operational and tactical failures on politics at home—a stab in the back—is a long and dangerous tradition: You can find Iraq and Vietnam versions of that sardonic T-shirt. Plenty of blame can be spread around for America’s defeat in its longest foreign war. But don’t let the generals fool you: We were losing when they left.

Gil Barndollar is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, a think tank specializing in military and strategic issues. He served in Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine in 2011–12 and 2013–14.
Jason Dempsey is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank specializing in defense and national-security issues. He served in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2012–13.
Don’t Believe the Generals
read more

Potzel Stressed Need for Inclusivity in Afghan Cabinet

The deputy special envoy of the UN Secretary-General also expressed frustration over the lack of a constitution in Afghanistan.

The deputy head of the UN Assistant Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Markus Potzel, called for the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan.

In an interview with TOLOnews, Potzel said that the caretaker government must obtain domestic recognition to be recognized by the international community.

“First of all, it is necessary that the government reach domestic recognition. It means based on elections, based on a referendum or based on a Loya-Jirga,” he said.

Potzel also expressed concerns over the deteriorated economic and social situation in Afghanistan, saying that the caretaker government must pay serious attention to this.

“The economic and social situation of Afghanistan is very weak,” he said.

The deputy special envoy of the UN Secretary-General also expressed frustration over the lack of a constitution in Afghanistan.

“We see that there is no plan and there is no constitution and there is no other law,” he said.

However, earlier the Islamic Emirate had stressed that its cabinet is inclusive and that it has formed proper strategies to govern the country.

Potzel Stressed Need for Inclusivity in Afghan Cabinet
read more

UN chief: former Kyrgyzstan president to head Afghan mission

Associated Press

3 September 2022

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Former Kyrgyzstan president Roza Otunbayeva has been appointed as the new U.N. special envoy for crisis-stricken Afghanistan, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced late Friday.

Otunbayeva succeeds Deborah Lyons of Canada as head of the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan known as UNAMA. She will be in charge of the U.N.’s humanitarian operations and dealings with the country’s Taliban rulers.

Guterres said Otunbayeva brings to the position over 35 years of professional experience in leadership, diplomacy, civic engagement, and international cooperation.

She served as president in 2010-2011, as foreign minister on three occasions, in parliament and as deputy prime minister. She was also Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to the United States and Britain.

Presently, Otunbayeva is a member of Guterres’ High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation and head of the Roza Otunbayeva Initiative Foundation in Kyrgyzstan.

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned the Security Council Monday that Afghanistan faces deepening poverty, with 6 million people suffering severe food shortages stemming from humanitarian, economic, climate and financial crises.

Conflict, poverty, climate shocks and food insecurity “have long been a sad reality” in Afghanistan, Griffiths said. What makes the current situation “so critical” is the halt to large-scale development aid since the Taliban takeover a year ago, he said.

More than half the Afghan population — some 24 million people — need assistance and close to 19 million are facing acute levels of food insecurity, Griffiths said.

“We worry” those figures will soon worsen as winter weather sends already high fuel and food prices skyrocketing, he said.

Afghanistan’s economy has cratered since the pullout of U.S. and allied forces in August 2021 and the withdrawal of foreign aid agencies over the Taliban’s refusal to allow girls to attend school and other human rights violations.

Afghan funds abroad have been frozen, although U.S. President Joe Biden has signed an order calling for banks to provide $3.5 billion of the amount to a trust fund for distribution through humanitarian groups for Afghan relief and basic needs.

The U.N. is also seeking billions in relief funds from donor nations.

UN chief: former Kyrgyzstan president to head Afghan mission
read more

Blast at Afghan Mosque Kills at Least 18, Including a Prominent Cleric

HERAT, Afghanistan — An explosion tore through a crowded mosque in western Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 18 people, including a prominent cleric close to the Taliban, according to Taliban officials and a local medic.

The explosion, in the city of Herat, left the courtyard of the Guzargah Mosque littered with bodies and the ground stained with blood, video from the scene showed.

The bomb went off around noon during Friday Prayer, when mosques are full of worshipers. As well as the 18 who died, at least 21 others were wounded, said Mohammad Daud Mohammadi, an official at the Herat ambulance center.

Among the dead was Mawlawi Mujib Rahman Ansari, a prominent cleric who was known in Afghanistan for his criticism of the Western-backed governments that had governed the country over the past two decades until the Taliban seized control last year.

Mawlawi Ansari was seen as close to the Taliban, and his death was confirmed by the group’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid.

Just before the bombing, Mawlawi Ansari had met in another part of the city with the Taliban government’s deputy prime minister, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was on a visit to Herat.

Mawlawi Ansari had rushed from the meeting to the mosque to get to the noon prayers, an aide to Mullah Baradar said in a Twitter post mourning the cleric.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s blast.

Last month, a bombing at a mosque in the Afghan capital, Kabul, targeted and killed a pro-Taliban cleric in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

Mawlawi Ansari was for years a thorn in the side of the pro-Western governments in Afghanistan. In his sermons at the Guzargah, where he had long been the preacher, he urged his supporters to carry out protests against the governments and spoke out against women’s rights.

Blast at Afghan Mosque Kills at Least 18, Including a Prominent Cleric
read more

Khalilzad Urges US, Islamic Emirate to Pursue Doha Agreement

Khalilzad suggested the US and “Taliban” sit for talks and discuss the points of the agreements which have not been implemented.

The former US special envoy for Afghanistan’s reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, urged Washington and the Islamic Emirate to pursue the agreement which they reached on February 29, 2019.

In an interview with TOLOnews, the US former envoy for Afghan peace called on the “Taliban” to mull over their policies regarding several issues including the closure of girls’ schools beyond grade six in order to engage with the international community.

“(If) the Taliban want to have a legal government and be part of the international community and make a strong Afghanistan, they should revise their views,” he said.

Khalilzad suggested the US and “Taliban” sit for talks and discuss the points of the agreements which have not been implemented.

“The US and Taliban should sit for (talks) on issues which were included in the Doha agreement but not implemented, like the guarantee on terrorism, like the formation of a government based on dialogue,” Khalilzad said.

The Afghan-born US veteran diplomat accused the Islamic Emirate of breaching the Doha agreement, saying that he is sure about the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman-al-Zawahiri in Kabul, which to date the Islamic Emirate has still not confirmed. The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid earlier at a press conference called the killing of Zawahiri in Kabul an “allegation.”

“I am sure this happened and the Taliban must also be aware of it and they know it. They have a problem with how to explain it because this is in contrast with the Doha agreement,” Khalilzad said.

The US former envoy for Afghan peace was also critical of former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, saying that Ghani’s fleeing caused the current deteriorated situation in Afghanistan.

Khalilzad Urges US, Islamic Emirate to Pursue Doha Agreement
read more

Islamic Emirate Rejects USIP Report Claiming Terrorists in Afghanistan

But a spokesman for the Islamic Emirate stressed that the Afghan soil will not be used against any country. 

The Islamic Emirate denied the assessment of the US Institute of Peace that says the “Taliban” has continued “to harbor a range of terrorist groups that endanger their neighbors.”  

According to USIP, the “Taliban” has given sanctuary to “the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which threatens Pakistan; the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which threatens China; the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which threatens Uzbekistan; and ISIS-Khorasan Province, which threatens everyone (including the Taliban).”

But a spokesman for the Islamic Emirate stressed that the Afghan soil will not be used against any country.

“The Islamic  Emirate does not allow anyone to threaten other countries from Afghan soil. Such allegations made in this regard are not true. Unfortunately, such allegations are published without evidence or proof. It is based on inaccurate information and propaganda,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman for the Islamic Emirate.

According to USIP, one year after the Islamic Emirate came to power, Afghanistan’s neighbors in the region are coming to grips “with the reality that they now own a greater share of Afghanistan’s problems and the Taliban realize that neither recognition nor financial aid are going to come from the region easily.”

The analysts give various opinions on the matter:

“The neighbors of Afghanistan are concerned and the neighbors of Afghanistan want the recognition of Afghanistan because Afghanistan then would be obliged to follow up with some international conventions. This could not be solved only via some verbal assurances by Kabul,” said Torek Farhadi, a political analyst.

“If the neighbors really have concerns regarding Afghanistan, they should recognize Afghanistan,, so their concerns could be addressed,” said Janat Fahim Chakari, an international relations analyst.

The assessment said that the regional powers, particularly Iran, Russia and China, were happy to see US and NATO troops go but are not in a position to replace the massive amounts of development assistance.

Islamic Emirate Rejects USIP Report Claiming Terrorists in Afghanistan
read more

Mawlawi Ansari, Vocal Cleric in Herat, Killed in Mosque Blast

Ansari was born in 1362 (solar year) in Herat and received his education there and later went on to become the imam of Guzargah mosque in Herat.

Mawlawi Mujeeb Rahman Ansari was an Afghan Islamic cleric famous for his harsh conservative remarks and for attracting criticism from fellow Afghans.  

Ansari was born in 1362 (solar year) in Herat and received his education there and later went on to become the imam of Guzargah mosque in Herat.

He was targeted and killed by a suicide attack that took place inside the Guzargah mosque during the Friday prayers.

He was one of the famous critics of the former republic government of Afghanistan.

“We were struggling for the freedom of the country, today we are struggling for the reconstruction of the country,” Ansari recently told a gathering of people in Herat.

He studied Islamic education at Ansar Darul Uloom in Herat.

Ansari become a public figure after he and his followers prevented a music concert in Herat in 1391 (solar year).

“If anyone makes any small movement against the current government– I am junior and younger than all of these Ulema (Islamic clerics)– if so all of the Ulema, all over Afghanistan should reach out to give the Fatwa (order) to behead those who stand against the Islamic Emirate, and they should be eliminated,” he told a gathering of Islamic clerics in Kabul.

He was also the head of a radio station called “Ansar” in Herat province.

No one has yet claimed the attack on Ansari.

Mawlawi Ansari, Vocal Cleric in Herat, Killed in Mosque Blast
read more

Taliban puts on show of force to celebrate anniversary of U.S. withdrawal

KABUL — Taliban fighters and senior leaders gathered Wednesday for a celebration at Bagram air base, once the largest American military base in Afghanistan, to mark one year since U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country.

Images released by Taliban media show fighters marching in Western-style uniforms, followed by columns of armored vehicles bearing the group’s black-and-white flag moving down one of the main runways. Helicopters flew above the crowd.

“We are gathered here to celebrate the first anniversary of the withdrawal,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told local media attending the ceremony. “I am proud that our country was liberated on this day and American troops were forced to leave Afghanistan,” he said.

The departure of U.S. forces from Afghanistan marked the end of over two decades of war here, but did not lead to a negotiated peace. Afghan government security forces collapsed in the face of Taliban attacks and when the group reached Kabul, President Ashraf Ghani fled, effectively handing over the capital.

Under Taliban rule, Afghanistan is more secure for most Afghans, but civil liberties and the rights of women are severely restricted. The country remains internationally isolated and a growing economic crisis has plunged millions deeper into poverty.

In a video broadcast by the Taliban’s media wing, Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the acting prime minister, said the group was left with nothing after the previous government collapsed.

“The foreigners took everything with them when they left, and imposed sanctions on Afghanistan, which have resulted in poverty and hunger,” he said. But much of the military equipment flaunted at Bagram appeared to be what U.S. and NATO forces left behind in the last days of a hasty withdrawal.

Foreign media outlets were banned from covering the event by the Taliban, which cited security concerns.

The United States and other Western powers had hoped that economically isolating the Taliban would force the group to moderate. Such “pressures,” Akhund warned, “will not give any result.” He called instead for greater engagement with the country’s new leaders.

In central Kabul, hundreds of other Taliban fighters gathered to fly flags and spray glittery foam into the air as they cheered the country’s “independence day.”

Abdul Hakim Saih brought his five grandchildren to watch the festivities. Originally from Logar province, the family only moved to Kabul after the Taliban takeover when Saih’s son — a Taliban fighter — was given a position with the group’s intelligence forces.

“In Logar we were always on the run, moving from place to place to escape night raids and bombings,” he said, explaining that the violence was particularly hard on the children. His family no longer has to fear for their safety. “It’s a better life now,” he said.

The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces began under the Trump administration and the policy decision was upheld by President Biden, who said the exit would be conducted “responsibly, deliberately and safely.”

But after a set of swift Taliban gains suddenly left the Afghan capital surrounded, diplomats, Afghan officials and aid workers scrambled to flee the country. Chaos engulfed the Kabul airport for weeks as Taliban fighters entered the presidential palace and tens of thousands rushed to escape.

Some Afghans who tried and were unable to flee on the U.S. airlift say they now feel secure under the Taliban. Others remain in hiding, afraid for their lives because of connections to U.S. and NATO forces or activist groups. A year on, some are still hoping for a chance to get out.

One former Afghan soldier said the day marks the anniversary of his “abandonment” by the United States.

“Today I feel shattered. We were always assured by the United States that they would stand with us,” he said. For over 10 years, he served as a commando in one of the elite Afghan military units that worked closely with U.S. forces.

Like others in this report, he spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

During the withdrawal last year, the former officer waited outside Kabul airport for days. “The Americans inside kept saying they would send cars to pick us up, but they never came.”

Fearing detention or death if the Taliban found him, he fled Kabul. He has spent the past year moving from province to province, and village to village.

“Maybe it’s an independence day for the Taliban. But for me, I’ve become like a prisoner.”

Afghan female activists described similar frustrations.

“We are restricted and confined at home; we are not allowed to study, or work or engage in social activities,” said one woman in Kabul.

Another activist who fled Afghanistan after she was detained for participating in a peaceful protest said the celebrations in Kabul “are making a mockery of an independence day.”

“I don’t know what kind of independence they are talking about, maybe for [the Taliban], but not the people of Afghanistan,” she said.

At the Taliban celebration in central Kabul, Najmullah Basirat, 25, said he feels “indifferent” about the changes over the past year. He worked for and supported the previous government, but never wanted U.S. and NATO troops to remain in his country forever.

“As an Afghan, I wanted foreign forces to withdraw. I don’t believe our country should ever rely on any outside forces,” he said. Now, he says he supports the Taliban.

As long as his country is led by Afghans and provides security and basic services, “I would support any government,” he said.

Susannah George is The Washington Post’s Afghanistan and Pakistan bureau chief. She previously headed the Associated Press’s Baghdad bureau and covered national security and intelligence from the AP’s Washington bureau
Taliban puts on show of force to celebrate anniversary of U.S. withdrawal
read more

The wrong plane out of Afghanistan

HËNGJIN, Albania — The 21-year-old university student did not realize it at the time, but he got on the wrong plane out of Afghanistan.

How was he — or any of the other 780 Afghans approaching their first anniversary at this Albanian beach resort — to know then what they know now?

What he did know last August was that amid the Taliban’s return to power and the chaos of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, an escape was an escape. An evacuation plane was an evacuation plane. A safe place was a safe place.

And it still is. Certainly here, on the gentle, sun-drenched coast of the Adriatic Sea, in a tiny European nation more than 2,600 miles from home where — unlike many larger ones —the government and community, welcomed the Afghans with open arms. But a year after the valiant efforts of so many helped tens of thousands of Afghans escape their country as their government collapsed, many other things have become clear.

For one, an evacuation was not necessarily a path to refuge in the United States, as many expected. And it may never be forthousands of evacuees whom the government estimates boarded chartered flights in their escape and landed in other countries like Albania, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Mexico, Greece and Uzbekistan.

The Biden administration, which faced intense criticism for the way it ended the U.S. war in Afghanistan and failed to evacuate many of its Afghan allies, says it never promised to provide refuge for everyone. That response does not sit well with evacuees and their supporters who note that President Biden said the United States would not leave its Afghan allies behind.

The most important factor in determining which Afghan evacuees found quick paths to the United States was not the strength of their U.S. connections. It was whether they made it onto what government officials call a “gray tail” — a U.S. military aircraft — vs. a “white tail” — a commercial or chartered aircraft; a normal airplane.

More than 76,000 Afghans ultimately landed on U.S. military bases abroad last fall, and were transferred onward to the United States for resettlement, in an effort the administration named “Operation Allies Welcome.”

Most of those Afghans who boarded “white tails” did not land on U.S. bases. Theylanded in other countries. It was the opening act of a year-long bureaucratic mess that is only now moving toward a resolution — for some.

For the student, his siblings and hundreds like them who were taken to Albania, a country they had never heard of — and to a beach resort, no less — it has become the strangest of limbos.

For nearly a year, they have lived in a sprawling beach hotel in Shëngjin, a resort town with a long, wide swath of sand on Albania’s north coast, a little over an hour’s drive from the capital, Tirana.

“The food is good, and the room is good,” said the student, whose brother had worked for the Americans, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relatives in Afghanistan from possible retaliation by the Taliban. “But we are in a psychological prison because we don’t know what will happen.”

Afghanistan was not Albania’s war, and Albania was not an obvious destination for fleeing Afghans.

During its 20-year war in Afghanistan, the U.S. government had spent trillions of dollars to build a government, civil society and armed forces in the central Asian country. It had deployed some 800,000 U.S. troops and thousands more government workers and contractors.

The student’s brother had served as an interpreter for U.S. Special Forces, and became a U.S. citizen. Their sister presided over a religious minority Hazara girls’ school, funded by foreign aid money. And the family had benefited from the liberal ideals and institutions that America brought.

The student had no memory of an Afghanistan without America. And America is where he — and many of the other evacuees, who had worked for American organizations, studied at American universities, or received U.S. government-funded training — thought they were heading.

As one of NATO’s smaller and poorest member states, Albania sent just over 4,100 troops over 20 years in Afghanistan. But early in the U.S.-led evacuation, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said his country, a staunch U.S. ally, was prepared to welcome thousands of fleeing Afghans.

“The NATO member states need to take care of the people that were there for us and worked for us, believed in what we were bringing there and aligned with what we wanted for the future of Afghanistan,” he said in an interview this month. “And 30 years ago, frankly, we were like the Afghans. We were escaping and we needed shelter, and we were sheltered.”

There were far more trying to flee Afghanistan in those final, frantic three weeks of the U.S. withdrawal than there were seats on U.S. military flights — if they could even get inside the airport.

So American nonprofits and veterans groups that were struggling to evacuate their Afghan partners turned to the handful of other countries that had agreed to take them.

Many called Rama.

Within a few months, Albania had taken in some 2,500 Afghans.

The evacuating organizations expected that Albania would be a stopover, a temporary landing pad as evacuees were processed for permanent resettlement in the United States, representatives of the groups said in interviews.

“Our expectation, given our conversations with the Department of Homeland Security … was that everybody was going to be out within the first couple of weeks of December,” said Jason Kander, an Afghanistan veteran and former Missouri secretary of state, whose Afghan Rescue Project evacuated 380 Afghans to Albania.

He had another good reason to think so. Operation Allies Welcome in early fall was beginning to resettle the 76,000 gray tail Afghans. They included not only some of America’s allies and partners — but also taxi drivers, cobblers and businesspeople who had simply been able to fight their way through the chaos to get inside the airport at the right time.

Certainly, the groups who arrived in Albania would be resettled the same way, Kander reasoned.

Rama, who had initially said that Albania was to serve as a “transit place for a certain number of Afghan political emigrants who have the United States as their final destination,” later said there was never an agreed-upon timeline for those departures.

But he decided early on that he was not going to put them in a refugee camp. He wanted to give them dignity and calm, he said. He wanted to give them “what we wanted when we were the Afghans once upon a time.”

The towering beach hotels of Shëngjin, which clear out for the winter months, seemed perfect. And the Rafaelo Resort, a sprawling five-building, three-pool retreat on the water that can accommodate 2,300 guests, said it would house most of them.

The accommodation was conditional. The Rafaelo signed agreements with the American nonprofits and affiliates that brought the Afghans to Albania, with each group pledging to cover the room and board for its evacuees for a daily charge of about $30 per person.

The organizations ranged from the Hillary Clinton-founded Vital Voices to the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. military-allied Spirit of America and even FIFA.

By December, 485 of the Rafaelo’s 657 rooms were occupied by more than 1,700 Afghans, said Bledar Shima, the hotel’s general manager, and the Rafaelo had come to resemble a contained Afghan community.

It was their “own sort of village,” said Alyse Nelson, the president and CEO of Vital Voices, who visited her organization’s group of about 1,100 Afghans at the hotel last November.

Children kicked soccer balls across the pool deck. Families strolled the empty boardwalk, and shopped for groceries in the nearby town of Lezhë.

The university student, who shared a suite with his brother, sister and sister-in-law, forged friendships with other young Afghans. Various organizations set up a health clinic, as well as educational and counseling services on the hotel’s ground floor.

For a while, the Rafaelo was simply a relief. The Afghans there had escaped the Taliban. They had food, shelter and safety.

An evacuee in her 20s began teaching kids at the hotel how to skateboard. Artists worked on murals. Teachers led classes for evacuee children and adults. And a few culinary entrepreneurs began selling prepared food in town.

But months passed, and no one at the Rafaelo seemed to be getting “processed” for their new lives in America.

Then, in December, the State Department delivered some news: Anyone who left Afghanistan on a charter before Aug. 31 and was waiting in Albania or another country would be included in Operation Allies Welcome — meaning they were eligible for U.S. resettlement.

But the news applied only to a minority of the Rafaelo Afghans. Most had left Afghanistan on chartered flights after Aug. 31 — when military flights were no longer an option. If they wished to come to America, they would have to try their luck through the complex and backlogged U.S. immigration system or refugee program.

Suddenly, many — along with their organization sponsors — realized they had no clear pathway to the United States.

The news coincided with a sudden, tragic death in the student’s family in Afghanistan, and the young group felt hopeless and scared. It was their first time away from home. They were all under 25.

“We didn’t know what [we] should we do,” he said. His sister began sobbing so incessantly and uncontrollably that they made multiple trips to the public hospital in nearby Lezhë, and their U.S. citizen brother scrounged up the money to visit them in Albania.

The despair reverberated around the resort.

“What happens if our cases are rejected? What shall we do in Afghanistan? We lost everything,” said Parigul Nabizadah, a teacher who had worked for a D.C.-based nonprofit, the American Councils for International Education, and was evacuated with her husband and two young children. “What will happen to us if we go back?”

Not long after that, Kander’s Afghan Rescue Project told the hotel it had run out of money — and it stopped paying its bills.

“Just to be clear: Everybody knew this was coming. We had a finite amount of money,” said Javad Khazaeli, the group’s attorney.

The hotel says the Afghan Rescue Project now owes it well over $2 million for the 380 people it signed on to sponsor. The Afghan Rescue Project says the U.S. government, which in December approved a $7 billion bill to fund Afghan resettlement, should be responsible for the bill. And the State Department said that will not happen.

“The U.S. government has no responsibility for these people,” said a senior State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity under guidelines set by the department. The organizations signed letters to support their evacuees in Albania, the official said. “The U.S. taxpayer isn’t going to take over.”

“What should we do? Should we give them only one meal per day?” said Shima, the hotel manager. That wouldn’t be fair, he said. “They are victims too.” But there’s also a limit. “How long can someone afford to give hotel [rooms] for free?”

The Biden administration says it never encouraged the American groups to take their people to Albania, and that it sent a clear message last fall that any private entity evacuating Afghans would bear responsibility for them — and that those Afghans would not have a guaranteed path to the United States.

But veterans, U.S. service members, and others — including officials — who took part in the evacuation, said the collaboration of people across government and the civilian sector amid the rush of the evacuation also blurred the lines of expectation.

“We were all working our contacts in these networks of people both inside the government and outside the government that were teaming up to get people out of Kabul,” said Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA and Pentagon official. “Those days were so chaotic … you just had people across the world who were trying to do right by the people who risked their lives to help us.”

In her struggle to evacuate Afghans she had worked with, Slotkin instructed a staffer to “Google all the ambassadors” to the few countries that were taking Afghans.

The U.S. ambassador to Albania, Yuri Kim, had worked with Slotkin in Iraq. So Slotkin called her, pleading: “Yuri, you got to help me out here. I’ve got Afghans. I hear that Albania is willing to take them,” the congresswoman said.

The ambassador connected Slotkin with Rama. Slotkin collaborated with former national security adviser H.R. McMaster to arrange a charter. Kim and the Albanian foreign minister then met the flight on the tarmac, Slotkin said.

In the summer months, Shëngjin’s beach fills with lounge chairs and umbrellas packed in side by side. Tourists in skimpy swimsuits flood the resorts. Pop and techno music blasts at constant highs from restaurant speakers, and shops hawk sun hats and inflatable dolphin and turtle tubes. In the evenings, the vacationers throng the boardwalk, taking in the ice cream parlors, carnival games and live music.

Shëngjin has long since lost the atmosphere of an Afghan village. More than half of the Rafaelo’s original evacuee population has now departed — including Slotkin’s group, which had access to resettlement through Operation Allies Welcome because they left Afghanistan before Aug. 31.

Even so, most of those who have left the Rafaelo have gone to Canada. Even some with strong U.S. immigration cases found that Canada was simply quicker than the United States to offer them permanent resettlement, evacuees and their sponsors said.

Nearly 800 Afghans remain. More than two dozen babies have been born in Albania since the group arrived. At least one person has died. And at least two families gave up and returned to Afghanistan, on-site coordinators for the groups said.

Soon, tourist season will give way to another quiet Shëngjin winter, and the evacuees wonder how many of them will still be there to see it.

On Aug. 15 — the anniversary of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban — officials from the Departments of State and Homeland Security held a conference call with the organizations still sponsoring Afghans at the hotel.

“We told them we’ve decided to expand eligibility for consideration for entry into the United States,” said Elizabeth Jones, the State Department’s coordinator for Afghan relocation efforts. The cutoff was no longer Aug. 31.A team of officials would arrive in Albania in September to begin processing the remaining Afghans.

The administration hopes that most will be in the United States by June 2023.

Writing by Abigail Hauslohner. Ted Muldoon, Anja Troelenberg and Ilir Tsouko contributed to this report. Photos by Ilir Tsouko. Videos by Ilir Tsouko and Apostolis Giotopolous. Design and development by Beth Broadwater.

Editing by Efrain Hernandez Jr. Photo editing by Natalia Jimenez. Video editing by Jayne Orenstein. Copy editing by Dorine Bethea. Additional editing by Madison Walls and Courtney Kan.

The wrong plane out of Afghanistan
read more