Afghan women meet in Albania in ‘act of defiance’ against Taliban crackdown

Annie Kelly in Tirana

The Guardian
Wed 11 Sep 2024 08.28 EDT

More than 130 Afghan women have gathered in Albania at an All Afghan Women summit, in an attempt to develop a united voice representing the women and girls of Afghanistan in the fight against the ongoing assault on human rights by the Taliban.

Some women who attempted to reach the summit from inside Afghanistan were prevented from travelling, pulled off flights in Pakistan or stopped at borders. Other women have travelled from countries including Iran, Canada, the UK and the US where they are living as refugees. The summit, which has been two years in the making, is being hosted by the Albanian government in Tirana after multiple other governments across the region refused, said the organizers.

Fawzia Koofi, the women’s activist and former Afghan MP, whose organisation Women for Afghanistan arranged the summit, said: “In these three days, the women of Afghanistan from all backgrounds come together to unite their efforts on scenarios to change the current status quo at a time when women in Afghanistan say they are being completely erased from the public sphere.

“We aim to achieve consensus and strategise on how to make the Taliban accountable for the human rights violations they are perpetrating and how to improve the economic situation for women inside the country.”

The summit comes a few weeks after the Taliban published new “vice and virtue” laws that banned women’s voices being heard in public and made it mandatory for women to completely cover their bodies outside the home.

“Us being here together is an act of defiance. We will not be silenced,” said Seema Ghani, a former minister under the government of Hamid Karzai and now a women’s rights activist who has remained in Afghanistan to carry out humanitarian work. “Women and girls inside Afghanistan are living lives that are dominated by fear, every day. Just leaving the house is an ordeal.”

“The world is moving on but we are here, all of us together, to try to make sure that we are not forgotten. We are not all here to agree with each other, but we are here to talk, debate and hopefully end with a united voice,” said Ghani.

‘Frightening’ Taliban law bans women from speaking in public
At the end of the three-day summit, the organisers hope to publish a set of demands or guidelines for the international community that sets out how Afghan women want to respond to the systematic attack on their rights and freedom by the Taliban.

In the three years since the Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan, women have been barred from most forms of paid employment, prevented from walking in public parks and shut out of the criminal justice system, and girls have been stopped from going to secondary school or university. The Taliban have also resumed the stoning of women for crimes such as adultery.

A campaign for the Taliban’s treatment of women to be recognised as “gender apartheid” and a crime against humanity under international law was launched last year in an attempt to hold the group to account.

Afghan women meet in Albania in ‘act of defiance’ against Taliban crackdown
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Republicans work to put Afghanistan at center of election cycle

POLITICO

The battle of the “who screwed up Afghanistan” narrative is playing out across Washington in the form of congressional investigations, cable news hits and statements from campaign proxies.

Republicans released a new investigation over the weekend, particularly well-timed for former President Donald Trump’s campaign ahead of Tuesday’s debate, that puts the blame for the way the U.S. departed Afghanistan squarely on President Joe Biden (and now Kamala Harris).

“The administration’s unconditional surrender and the abandonment of our Afghan allies, who fought alongside the U.S. military against the Taliban — their brothers in arms — is a stain on this administration,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who led the investigation. “I will use every tool in my belt to compel both men to answer for the catastrophic failure of epic proportions their decisions caused.”

On Monday, a group of 10 former top U.S. military commanders shot back with an open letter defending Harris’ foreign policy credentials and accusing Trump of a “chaotic approach” to Afghanistan that “severely hindered” the Biden administration’s withdrawal options when it entered office. Trump originally set a deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country in 2021 as part of a deal with the Taliban that also included the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison. Biden panned the deal, but after he was elected followed through with the full withdrawal plan.

“We believed it was important to write this because we wanted to counter lies” put forward by the Trump campaign and Republican lawmakers on Afghanistan, said Randy Manner, a retired U.S. Army general who signed the letter.

For Republicans, just getting the Afghanistan withdrawal back into the news is a win — as it highlights one of the highest-profile failures in American foreign policy that ended on Biden’s watch, regardless of where the fault for the final phase of the war lies.

When Trump and Harris face off Tuesday, the fact that Afghanistan has been pushed back into the political news cycle makes it more likely it could come up as a topic.

Republicans are increasingly hammering Harris’s role in the policy. “The Afghanistan withdrawal will go down as one of the most embarrassing moments in American history, all thanks to Kamala’s incompetence,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The Democrats shoot back that it was Trump before he left office that set the stage for the chaotic withdrawal, and that ultimately, Team Biden made the right call to end an otherwise endless war and focus on bigger threats like Russia and China.

“Americans are no longer fighting and dying in Afghanistan, and we’re now no longer spending tens of billions of dollars a month to fight a war that could not be won,” said Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and Army veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The State Department issued a lengthy rebuttal to McCaul’s report on Monday, alleging that over the course of its investigation, the Republican House majority “issued partisan statements, cherry-picked facts, withheld testimonies from the American people, and obfuscated the truth behind conjecture.”

“We will not stand by silently as the department and its workforce are used to further partisan agendas,” the department said.

McCaul has hit the airwaves in network and cable news hits to outline the findings of his three-year investigation, and Trump campaign surrogates are still touting the former president’s ties with Gold Star families of U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan, despite the controversy surrounding his recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery.

Harris’ campaign is lashing out at the Republican presidential contender on national security in a new campaign ad featuring former top Trump officials such as former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper saying he isn’t fit to be commander in chief.

But Harris also has a line to walk between showing that she has been a key player in foreign policy decisions over the past four years, without being hit by criticism over how some of those Biden decisions played out. It’s unclear whether Harris will fight back and hammer Trump on his own Afghanistan strategy in the debate on Tuesday, or try to shift the narrative to other foreign policy issues.

The Harris campaign unveiled a new policy section on her website Monday ahead of the debate including a section on foreign policy, proclaiming that Harris is “ready to be commander in chief on day one.”

The ad cites Harris’s roles on Russia, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific, Israel and Gaza, and NATO. The website makes no mention of Afghanistan.

Republicans work to put Afghanistan at center of election cycle
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GOP probe of Afghanistan exit rips Biden, labors to implicate Harris

The Washington Post
The report, following two years of investigation, was criticized as “nakedly partisan” by Democrats who were unmoved by its lack of new insights.

The Republican leadership of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Sunday released a sprawling report on the U.S. exit from Afghanistan three years ago, blasting President Joe Biden and his administration as the callous and “dogmatic” orchestrator of a foreign policy failure so extreme that it ranked “far worse” than even America’s catastrophic withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975.

Democrats swiftly dismissed the 240-page report, the product of a two-year GOP investigation, as “nakedly partisan” and as the cynical manipulation of tragedy for use as a “political football.”

The document arrives just two months ahead of a tightly contested presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, and on the eve of their highly anticipated debate Tuesday in Philadelphia. Both parties said the timing of its release was intended to underscore Republicans’ recent efforts to revive public scrutiny of the withdrawal, which the committee’s chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), suggested could “disqualify” Harris in the minds of voters.

The committee has said as well that even with the report’s publication, its work will continue with the pursuit of additional witness testimony.

It was Trump, as president in February 2020, who negotiated the oft-criticized deal, known as the Doha agreement, with Afghanistan’s Taliban militant group to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners and withdraw all U.S. forces the following year.

In recent weeks, though, he has aggressively defended his decision to cut a deal while seeking to draw voters’ attention instead to the chaos that ensued in Kabul during August 2021, as Biden executed the agreement and brought America’s longest war to a messy and violent end. Trump last week accused Biden and Harris of bearing responsibility for the suicide bomb attack during the withdrawal that killed 13 U.S. service members “just like they pulled the trigger.”

But while the GOP report contains some minor new details, there are no major revelations that go beyond prior reporting already in the public domain via separate investigations conducted by the Defense Department, the State Department, news outlets and analysts, as well as the foreign affairs committee itself. And it contains no evidence that Harris played a major role in the withdrawal’s execution.

The report focuses intently on the chaotic and desperate noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO), a three-week crisis marred by images of horror as Afghans trying to escape the Taliban’s return to power died amid the crush of desperate crowds, while clinging to departing U.S. planes and in the suicide bombing just outside Kabul’s airport.

Among its findings that the committee emphasized were revelations first publicized months ago, such as the evacuation request coming on the day the Taliban entered Afghanistan’s capital, and one diplomat’s assertion that the U.S. Embassy’s top official had violated covid-19 protocols.

And the report does not fulfill the GOP’s larger promise of accountability to the aggrieved families of the 13 slain Americans, some of whom appeared onstage at the Republican National Convention to show their support for Trump, who has shown them compassion and vowed transparency in ways that they say Biden has not.

“All they want — they want a phone call or a meeting from Harris or from Biden to say, ‘We know we did things wrong. It didn’t go well. And we are taking those lessons into account so that it never happens again,’” said Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), an Afghanistan war veteran who serves on the foreign affairs committee.

It’s unclear how deeply voters will consider the Afghanistan withdrawal when they cast their votes in November, and whether they are willing to link the catastrophic exit to Harris, whom Trump and McCaul have endeavored to cast as a critical decision-maker.

Within the pages of the report, “Biden-Harris administration” appears repeatedly — an adjustment that the committee’s Republican staff said it made in the final weeks of drafting the document. Yet there is scant mention of her as an individual, with the committee appearing to conclude that her most damaging behavior during the withdrawal was her absence of dissent.

“With the ascendance of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, the GOP performance has reached a crescendo — Republicans now claim she was the architect of the U.S. withdrawal though she is referenced only three times in 3,288 pages of the Committee’s interview transcripts,” the panel’s Democrats said in a memorandum released simultaneously with the Republican report.

The Harris campaign said in a statement ahead of the report’s release that “Trump gave the Taliban everything they wanted,” referring to the Doha agreement. “Despite the deal’s drastic implications for U.S. military strategy and the safety of U.S. troops and allies, Trump left the Biden-Harris Administration with zero plans for an orderly withdrawal — only a dangerous, costly mess.”

“The Biden-Harris administration knew such an attack was not only possible but likely, yet they still failed to take the appropriate measure to mitigate the risk,” the report states.

What’s more, the report charges, Biden was determined to withdraw — regardless of the cost, the warnings from his generals or the apparent deterioration of security as the Taliban steadily gained ground. It also says officials “misled and, in some instances, directly lied to the American people at every stage of the withdrawal,” and accuses the entire administration of a vast “cover-up” led in large part by the White House National Security Council.

Sharon Yang, a White House spokesperson, characterized the GOP’s report as a “recycled, partisan” attack. “The fact remains,” she said in a statement, “that ending our longest war was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result.”

Republicans argue otherwise. The aftermath of the withdrawal has degraded U.S. national security and U.S. credibility on the world stage, as Afghanistan has again become “a haven for terrorists,” the report alleges, while America’s Afghan allies who were left behind have faced imprisonment, torture and murder at the hands of the Taliban. The chaotic exit “created a tidal wave of problems in Afghanistan, the United States, and around the world,” the report says, leaving billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. weapons and currency behind to the Taliban. And it “created a crisis within the U.S. military and among American veterans,” undermining recruitment and retention, it claims.

The report allots little space to the 19 years of war and policy decisions that came before the 2021 withdrawal, including under two Republican administrations. That task falls to the bipartisan congressionally mandated Afghanistan War Commission, which will deliver its own comprehensive report in 2026.

Democrats on Sunday panned the new report and noted the total absence of Democratic involvement in its drafting. “It is a politicized, cherry-picked report … a nakedly partisan campaign thing,” the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” That is all it was “designed to do,” Himes said — “not shed light on a tragedy.”

The foreign affairs committee’s Democratic staff, led by Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), produced a 56-page document that largely echoes the administration’s previous defense of its handling of the evacuation. It highlights, for instance, that when the evacuation was over, “the Biden Administration had facilitated the largest humanitarian airlift in U.S. history and ended the United States’ longest war” — a rosy gloss on an endeavor that left thousands of Afghan allies and their families behind.

Meeks, in a letter to fellow Democrats, characterized the Republicans’ report as having excluded “anything unhelpful to a predetermined, partisan narrative” and said their GOP colleagues took “particular pains to avoid facts involving former president Trump.”

Asked on “Face the Nation” whether the GOP’s investigation identified any “mistakes by the Trump administration,” McCaul singled out Zalmay Khalilzad, the envoy Trump dispatched to negotiate the withdrawal with the Taliban. The report heaps ample blame on him while seemingly excusing Trump from Khalilzad’s decision-making.

Khalilzad responded to some of the report’s allegations against him, including the charge that he kept military leaders in the dark during U.S.-Taliban negotiations. “That is factually incorrect,” Khalilzad wrote on social media. “Far from having been kept in the dark, the military … fully participated in the negotiations with the Taliban.” He cited the direct involvement of Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, who was the top commander in Afghanistan at the time of the Doha talks. “No agreement was made on any military issue without the full knowledge of our military leaders and their participation in decisions made by our leaders,” Khalilzad asserted.

He also pushed back on the report’s claim that he personally excluded the Afghan government from the negotiations, writing that the Afghan government and the Taliban were never able to reach a “mutual agreement on a new government” and that “there was widespread pessimism” among U.S. officials “that the Afghan leaders would put their country first and seek a realistic compromise.”

For his part, Trump, in 2021, celebrated Biden’s decision to stick with the withdrawal agreement his administration made with the Taliban — “Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do,” he said at the time — and in the weeks before the Afghan government’s collapse, he touted how he’d made it difficult for Biden to do anything other than follow through with the withdrawal he put in motion.

“They couldn’t stop the process,” he said at a political rally in June of that year, referring to the Biden administration. “Twenty-one years is enough, don’t we think?” he continued, overstating the length of the conflict by a year. “ … They couldn’t stop the process. They wanted to, but it was very tough to stop the process.”

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.

GOP probe of Afghanistan exit rips Biden, labors to implicate Harris
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Taliban Leader Meets Key Commanders in First Northern Visit Since 2021

ARSHAD MEHMOOD

Akhundzada’s meetings with top jihadist figures, including Abdul Haq Turkistani, signal potential shifts in Taliban power dynamics

(Islamabad) The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, has spent the last week visiting several northern Afghan cities on his first trip to the region in three years since the group regained control of the country.

No official images or details have emerged from these visits, raising questions about their purpose and impact. According to sources within the Taliban, Akhundzada visited Kunduz on Friday as part of his tour of northwestern provinces, urging Taliban members to avoid internal divisions and maintain discipline.

Despite Akhundzada’s calls for unity, internal rifts within the Taliban appear to be deepening. A recent United Nations report suggests that his frequent warnings have done little to resolve the ongoing power struggles within the group’s leadership. During his tour, Akhundzada visited Samangan, Faryab, Jawzjan, and Balkh provinces, repeatedly stressing the importance of unity and discouraging divisions based on ethnicity, language, or regional differences.

Akhundzada’s limited public presence has made him a mysterious figure, raising doubts about his ability to effectively enforce his directives. His lack of visibility complicates efforts to assert authority over Taliban members.

A Taliban official, speaking anonymously to The Media Line, revealed that Akhundzada also met with Abdul Haq Turkistani, a senior al-Qaida commander and leader of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), in Maymana City. A United Nations Security Council report noted that the leadership of the TIP, primarily composed of ethnic Uyghurs, operates from northern Afghanistan with Taliban support. The group seeks to liberate China’s Xinjiang province and establish a jihadist state.

Abdul Haq Turkistani, appointed to al-Qaida’s executive council in 2005, has long been involved in jihadist activity. In 2008, he threatened attacks during the Beijing Olympics, and by 2009, he vowed to target Chinese embassies globally. Recently, the US Treasury Department designated him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, with the United Nations also recognizing him as a terrorist leader.

This visit marks the first time in three years that Akhundzada has met with leaders of armed groups from China and Uzbekistan. Previously, TIP leaders worked primarily with Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani network and the Taliban’s interior minister.

Turkistani’s presence in Afghanistan contradicts the Taliban’s claim that no foreign fighters operate in the country. Experts say Akhundzada’s visit holds significant strategic importance, potentially affecting regional dynamics. While China invests heavily in Afghanistan, the Taliban leader’s engagement with anti-China guerrillas complicates this relationship.

Northern Afghanistan is a key region for the Taliban due to its proximity to Central Asia and its strategic trade routes. The region’s ethnic diversity, including groups historically opposed to the Taliban, makes it vital for consolidating power. Traditionally a stronghold for anti-Taliban factions, controlling northern Afghanistan allows the Taliban to suppress resistance and enhance its influence over Central Asia.

Despite Taliban claims, their control over the region remains incomplete. Akhundzada’s visit may be aimed at reinforcing Taliban forces to strengthen their hold on the area.

He noted, “China, a key regional ally, has heavily invested in Afghanistan through projects in mining and infrastructure. However, the Taliban’s ongoing ties with militant groups like the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which opposes Beijing, could put this fragile relationship at risk.”

Massoud added that Akhundzada’s meetings with militia commanders suggest the Taliban intends to maintain, if not strengthen, its jihadist alliances. He speculated that Akhundzada may be distancing himself from the powerful Haqqani network, led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, to consolidate his own power.

Adrian Calamel, a senior fellow at the Arabian Peninsula Institute and an expert on South Asian terrorism, told The Media Line, “Akhundzada’s visit to Northern Afghanistan focuses on directing militant forces toward the West, steering them away from Chinese targets.”

He added that Turkistani remains under al-Qaida’s control in Afghanistan and emphasized the importance of protecting Chinese investments in the country.

Calamel dismissed the idea that Akhundzada is distancing himself from the Haqqanis, suggesting that Siraj Haqqani may have orchestrated what he called “terrorist shuttle diplomacy.” He also warned that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was a “disastrous mistake” that the US will regret.

Kyle Orton, a British counter-terrorism analyst, told The Media Line, “The Taliban and al-Qaida operate as an indistinguishable jihadist network controlling Afghanistan, so Akhundzada’s meeting with the TIP/ETIM chief is not surprising” and will not affect Taliban-China relations. Calling NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan “a catastrophic mistake” that has seen the country regress to “pre-9/11 conditions,” Orton said the main threat to China from Afghanistan comes from the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province, which has grown since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover.

Kamal Alam, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The Media Line, “Akhund’s previous reluctance to visit the north suggests he didn’t deem it secure enough. Unlike Kandahar, the north lies outside the Taliban’s main sphere of influence.” He noted that the north, home to non-Pashtun groups like Tajiks and Uzbeks, has historically resisted Taliban rule.

Alam explained that the Taliban maintains control in the north through mercenary alliances rather than ideological loyalty. He cautioned that northern power brokers are pragmatic and may switch allegiances if Taliban control weakens, making the region’s situation fragile.

Meanwhile, US Republicans released a report on Monday criticizing President Joe Biden’s handling of the 2021 US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The withdrawal deal had originally been negotiated by then-President Donald Trump and the Taliban in 2020. Despite this, Republicans have strongly criticized President Biden for the chaotic withdrawal.

The report stated that the swift withdrawal caused chaos in Afghanistan, leading to the deaths of 13 US service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport and the Taliban’s rapid takeover of the capital.

Written by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the report accused Biden of failing to “mitigate the likely consequences of the decision” to withdraw US troops.

The report claimed that “Biden’s decision to withdraw all US troops was not based on the security situation, the Doha agreement, or the advice of his senior national security advisors or our allies.” Instead, it argued, the decision stemmed from Biden’s “longstanding and unyielding opinion that the United States should no longer be in Afghanistan.”

It further stated, “America’s credibility on the world stage was severely damaged after we abandoned Afghan allies to Taliban reprisal killings—the people of Afghanistan we had promised to protect.”

The report has reignited debate over the handling of the US’s longest war, just months before the November 2024 presidential election.

The withdrawal ended the US’s two-decadelong military presence in Afghanistan, during which around 775,000 American service members were deployed. More than 2,400 US troops were killed, and nearly 21,000 were wounded. Independent estimates suggest that more than 110,000 Afghan civilians and security forces died during the conflict.

Taliban Leader Meets Key Commanders in First Northern Visit Since 2021
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Work on TAPI Project in Afghanistan to Begin on Wednesday

ACCI also views the implementation of the TAPI project as crucial for enhancing Afghanistan’s political and economic relations with regional countries.

The Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has announced that work on the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) project is set to begin in Afghanistan tomorrow (Wednesday), with senior officials from the Islamic Emirate and Turkmenistan in attendance.

According to ministry spokesperson Homayoon Afghan, all preparations for the TAPI project have been finalized. Once work begins, the project is expected to create both direct and indirect job opportunities for thousands of people.

“It is expected that tomorrow, Wednesday, the work on the TAPI project will officially begin in Afghanistan with a ceremony. With the start of this project, thousands of Afghans will find employment opportunities, and Afghanistan will gain access to affordable and sustainable energy,” Homayoon Afghan said.

The TAPI project, a significant economic venture for Afghanistan and the region, has completed 214 kilometers of its pipeline on Turkmenistan soil. This pipeline will annually transport 33 billion cubic meters of Turkmenistan gas to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment (ACCI) also views the implementation of the TAPI project as crucial for enhancing Afghanistan’s political and economic relations with regional countries.

ACCI board member Khan Jan Alokozay said: “We hope that there will be no further delays and that the project will start. The importance of this project is immense. With the start of this new work, we believe that a significant change will come to our economy.”

Shakir Yaqoubi, an economic expert, emphasized the project’s importance, saying: “With the implementation of the TAPI project, we expect to earn close to $400 million, more or less, in transit fees and gain access to sufficient gas resources. It will also enhance large-scale economic cooperation and interactions between Afghanistan and regional countries, boost Afghanistan’s transit position more than ever, and secure a favorable and prominent place for Afghanistan in the new economic order.”

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the implementation of the TAPI project will provide Afghanistan with nearly $450 million annually in transit fees.

Work on TAPI Project in Afghanistan to Begin on Wednesday
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White House Says G.O.P.’s Afghanistan Report Offers ‘Little or Nothing New’

Reporting from the White House

The New York Times

President Biden’s spokesman denounced the House Republican investigation of the chaotic 2021 withdrawal as partisan and one-sided.

The White House dismissed on Monday a new House Republican investigative report castigating President Biden’s administration for the chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying that it offers “little or nothing new” and ignores critical facts.

John F. Kirby, a national security spokesman for the president, took the lectern at the White House to issue a lengthy rebuttal to the report that was released earlier in the day. It came more than three years after the event and less than two months before the November election.

Mr. Kirby derided what he called the “one-sided partisan nature of this report” and noted that it was not the only one issued by Republicans. “This comes, of course, two years after their first report, and this one says little or nothing new,” he said.

He pointed out that in pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, Mr. Biden was following a withdrawal agreement negotiated with the Taliban by President Donald J. Trump before leaving office.

“Ending wars is more difficult than starting them,” Mr. Kirby said. “President Biden knew that. He acknowledged that. But it doesn’t mean that the decision to end this one was wrong or that the withdrawal wasn’t conducted as professionally and as bravely as it was humanly possible given the circumstances. It doesn’t mean we don’t grieve and mourn with the families of those whose lives were tragically taken during the withdrawal, especially at Abbey Gate on the 26th of August of that year.”

The report, prepared by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, accused the Biden team of ignoring security warnings, failing to adequately plan an evacuation and lying to the public about the risks and the missteps that led to the bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members at Abbey Gate outside the airport in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The attack, which also killed as many as 170 civilians, punctuated a hasty and chaotic evacuation as the Taliban advanced, but Pentagon reviews have concluded that U.S. troops could not have prevented the violence.

The House report largely spared Mr. Trump of responsibility even though he sealed the original deal with the Taliban leading to the pullout and wanted to withdraw even more hastily.

The release of the report came as Mr. Trump has been blaming Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in the fall election, for “the humiliation in Afghanistan.” His campaign posted videos from some relatives of those killed at Abbey Gate criticizing her. Ms. Harris, for her part, has accused Mr. Trump of politicizing the tragedy, pointing to his photo opportunity at Arlington National Cemetery in defiance of rules barring political events.

Mr. Kirby rejected the report’s criticism, saying that planning for the withdrawal started in the spring of 2021 and that no one had anticipated how quickly the Taliban would take over the country. He noted that Mr. Trump’s agreement resulted in the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters held in Afghan prisons and that U.S. equipment left in the country was given to the Afghan government, not to the Taliban, and wound up in enemy hands only when the government collapsed.

Mr. Kirby added that the administration continues to “look with awe and admiration at the many thousands of men and women who waged this war over the course of 20 years — troops, diplomats, intelligence experts, contractors and civilian employees from this and dozens of other nations.”

He also denied that the administration was not candid with the public. “There was no deception, lying or lack of transparency by this administration, either during or after the withdrawal,” he said. “We did the best we could every day to keep the American people informed of what was happening. We conducted our own after-action reports and shared those, too, with the public.”

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He has covered the last five presidents and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework

White House Says G.O.P.’s Afghanistan Report Offers ‘Little or Nothing New’
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G.O.P. Report to Denounce Biden Administration Over Afghanistan Withdrawal

Reporting from Washington

The New York Times

In an election-season document, Republicans are set to offer few new revelations but instead heap blame on the “Biden-Harris administration” while absolving former President Donald J. Trump.

House Republicans are preparing to release an investigative report blaming the Biden administration for what they called the failures of the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, laying out a scathing indictment that appeared timed to tarnish Vice President Kamala Harris in the final weeks before the presidential election.

The roughly 350-page document set to be released on Monday is the product of a yearslong inquiry by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It accuses President Biden and his national security team of being so determined to pull out of Afghanistan that they flouted security warnings, refused to plan for an evacuation and lied to the American public throughout the withdrawal about the risks on the ground and missteps that led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members.

“The Biden-Harris administration prioritized the optics of the withdrawal over the security of U.S. personnel on the ground,” the report states. The document, a draft of which was reviewed by The New York Times, also contends that the administration’s mismanagement resulted in “exposing U.S. Defense Department and State Department personnel to lethal threats and emotional harm.”

Details of the document were reported earlier on Sunday by CBS.

The findings are largely a recitation of familiar lines of criticism against Mr. Biden, offering few new insights about what might have been done differently to avoid the Taliban’s swift march into Kabul and the disastrous U.S. evacuation operation in August 2021. But they come at a critical time in the presidential race, when Mr. Trump has been working to persuade voters that Ms. Harris is unfit to be the commander in chief.

The authors single out Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, for particular condemnation, charging that he failed to coordinate a viable exit strategy and misrepresented the situation on the ground to the public.

They absolve former President Donald J. Trump almost entirely of responsibility for the debacle, even though an inspector general found in 2022 that the deal his administration struck with the Taliban in 2020, known as the Doha Agreement, to orchestrate a rapid U.S. withdrawal, was a major factor in the crisis. The report instead faults Zalmay Khalilzad, then the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, for the shortcomings of that pact.

A number of independent and internal government reviews have found that a series of factors — including that agreement, the Afghan military’s dependence on support from U.S. troops and contractors, and insufficient worst-case-scenario planning — contributed to the harried nature of the withdrawal.

Mr. Trump has gone to great lengths to try to portray Ms. Harris as responsible for the deaths of 13 service members in a terrorist attack near the Kabul airport in the final days of the evacuation. Ms. Harris, in turn, has accused Mr. Trump of trying to score political points off the deaths of those and other troops, after his campaign took photos and video of him in a restricted area of Arlington National Ceremony in defiance of military rules.

The report offers little new information about what role Ms. Harris played in the president’s actions on Afghanistan, though it repeatedly castigates the “Biden-Harris administration” and quotes the vice president’s assertion that she was “the last person in the room” when Mr. Biden made the decision to withdraw U.S. troops.

“Vice President Harris, despite publicly championing Afghan women’s rights, appears to have been working in lock step with President Biden behind the scenes to withdraw all U.S. troops no matter the consequence to Afghan women and girls,” the report says.

Democrats complained that the report ignored Mr. Trump’s role.

“The Republican majority has taken particular pains to avoid facts involving former President Trump,” Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in a letter accompanying a memorandum countering the G.O.P.’s findings. “Republicans’ partisan attempts to garner headlines rather than acknowledge the full facts and substance of their investigation have only increased with the heat of an election season.”

In their memorandum, Democrats insisted that Biden administration officials pulled off as seamless an evacuation as could have been mustered in a rapidly deteriorating threat environment.

But the Republicans’ report condemns the State Department for failing to put a reliable consular process in place to ensure that Americans and the Afghans who supported U.S. operations would be able to reach the international airport in Kabul and board planes out of Afghanistan.

It metes out scathing criticism for a wide swath of senior State Department and National Security Council officials for failing to draft contingency plans that might have helped mitigate the confusion or scale back the U.S. diplomatic footprint in proportion with the reduction in troops.

And it asserts that many witnesses pointed to Mr. Sullivan as “taking the lead for the Biden-Harris administration’s withdrawal planning and strategy — and owning many of the failures.”

The White House pushed back against the findings, calling the charges against Mr. Sullivan “false and complete nonsense.”

“Everything we have seen and heard of Chairman McCaul’s latest partisan report shows that it is based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterizations and pre-existing biases that have plagued this investigation from the start,” Sharon Yang, a spokeswoman, said in a statement, referring to the committee’s chairman, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas.

“The White House coordinated a robust policy-planning process ahead of and during the withdrawal that reflected input from departments and agencies across the government, including officials on the ground in Kabul,” she added.

The report also charges that internal State Department risk assessments were watered down and embassy staff members who dared raise safety concerns were reprimanded. Ambassador Ross Wilson, then the top diplomat in Kabul, is described as so “maniacal” about keeping the embassy open that staff members wanting to discuss contingency plans for an evacuation had to meet in secret.

Republicans allege that when Mr. Wilson ultimately fled the embassy, he left some staff behind — and later, after learning he had contracted Covid during the evacuation, had a Foreign Service officer take a test in his stead to procure a negative result, so he could escape quarantine in Qatar and go home.

In an interview, Mr. Wilson categorically denied those claims and said that he “never reprimanded anybody.” He also said that while he was not the last person to leave the embassy, the only staff members who remained stayed behind to destroy sensitive and classified information, and that they arrived at the Kabul airport the next morning.

In interviews with the committee, Mr. Wilson and others also said that evacuation planning was underway in the spring of 2021.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is presented as mostly absent during the crisis, delegating decision making during critical weeks to subordinates. Spokespeople for the department rebutted that characterization.

In a statement, Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, accused Republicans of having “done a disservice by relying on false information and presenting inaccurate narratives meant only to harm the administration.”

The report is largely sympathetic to the military. But it challenges the Defense Department’s conclusion that the attack at Abbey Gate that killed 11 Marines, one soldier and one sailor was the work of a sole ISIS-K bomber, citing testimony from Marines who referred to gunshots and bullet wounds.

Military officials have explained that ball bearings in the explosive device used in the attack would have caused wounds that appeared similar to gunshot wounds.

Karoun Demirjian covers Congress with a focus on defense, foreign policy, intelligence, immigration, and trade and technology.

G.O.P. Report to Denounce Biden Administration Over Afghanistan Withdrawal
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Islamic Emirate Calls UN Human Rights Session ‘One-Sided’

Volker Turk, expressed concern at the session about the human rights situation, particularly women’s rights in Afghanistan.

The Islamic Emirate, responding to criticism of Afghanistan’s human rights situation during the 57th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council, claimed that the meeting and its discussions were one-sided.

Hamdullah Fitrat, the spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, emphasized the importance of having a representative from the Islamic Emirate at such meetings, arguing that without a representative from the caretaker government, the reports presented are biased.

Fitrat further stated: “There is no one representing Afghanistan in this session, and it is conducted in a one-sided manner. Therefore, the reports presented are also one-sided and unreliable, which we cannot endorse. Our demand is that a representative of the Islamic Emirate should be present at all meetings concerning Afghanistan to address concerns and refute any unfounded reports with logical arguments.”

Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed concern at the session about the human rights situation, particularly women’s rights in Afghanistan, stating that this situation jeopardizes the country’s future. Turk also mentioned that they are engaging with the caretaker government to change these policies.

“It is essential that Afghanistan uphold the quality of women and men and indeed the rights of all people, my office will continue to engage with the de facto authorities…… and take meaningful steps to fulfill human rights,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights added.

Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, said that human rights violations in Afghanistan are not limited to the past three years but have occurred over the past four and a half decades, and those responsible must be held accountable. Bennett also said that normalizing relations with the Taliban should be conditional on their respect for human rights.

Richard Bennett said: “Human rights crises in Afghanistan are not three years old, human rights have been violated in four and half decades of conflicts, all parties to the conflict are responsible and must be held accountable.”

The Canadian representative at the Human Rights Council session called for lifting the travel ban on Richard Bennett to Afghanistan.

“We condemn this disregard for the human rights of millions of Afghans and we remain committed to amplifying their voices and defending their rights. Mr. Special Rapporteur … we call on them to grant you the access,” he said.

Pakistan, representing the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, also criticized the reduction in humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan and called for an increase in assistance.

“According to the report under discussion, 23.7 million people would require humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, and only 16.2% of the required US dollar 3.5 billion in funding was received for the Afghanistan humanitarian needs and response plan for 2024; in this context we reiterate our call and stress upon the international community and donor agencies to continue the humanitarian assistance as underfunding will significantly increase the risk of malnutrition and other associated risks,” he said.

The 57th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council is set to continue until October 11, and extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan is part of the agenda for this session.

Islamic Emirate Calls UN Human Rights Session ‘One-Sided’
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Afghan Embassy in Norway to Close at Host Country’s Request

This comes as the Afghan Embassy in the United Kingdom also announced it would cease its activities on September 27.

The Embassy of Afghanistan in Norway has announced that it will close on September 12th at the request of the host country.

According to the statement, the embassy’s assets in Norway will be placed in the custody of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs until a new government is established in Afghanistan.

“Based on the official request of the host country, this representation will cease its activities from September 12, 2024, and following existing procedures, all movable and immovable property of this embassy will be entrusted to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs until a legitimate government based on the will of the people is established in Afghanistan,” the statement reads.

This comes as the Afghan Embassy in the United Kingdom also announced it would cease its activities on September 27.

Wahid Fakiri, an international relations expert, told TOLOnews: “This decision creates problems for Afghan refugees, such as not being able to obtain passports. From my perspective, this may be favorable for the Taliban in some ways.”

Salim Paigir, a political analyst, said: “The embassies and consulates are meant to solve the problems of Afghans living in Europe. If they do not interact with the Foreign Ministry, which is currently under Taliban control, it is natural that their documents will not be considered valid. Therefore, European countries have decided that the embassies must engage with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to resolve the problems of Afghans residing abroad.”

Previously, the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Emirate declared some Afghan embassies and consulates in European countries invalid due to their lack of interaction with the central government in Kabul. Subsequently, a German media outlet reported that the German Foreign Ministry had confirmed the invalidity of Afghan consular services in Berlin and Bonn.

Afghan Embassy in Norway to Close at Host Country’s Request
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  Fierce border clashes erupt between Pakistan and Afghanistan


ISLAMABAD —

Border security forces of Pakistan and Afghanistan were engaged in intense clashes Saturday, reportedly resulting in several casualties on both sides.

The war zone is located between the southeastern Afghan border province of Khost and the adjoining Pakistani district of Kurram, as reported by security officials and residents on both sides.

The conflict reportedly broke out when Taliban forces attempted to construct a security outpost on the Afghan side, prompting Pakistani troops to open fire to force the other side to stop the activity.

Pakistani officials maintain neither side can construct new posts unilaterally under mutual agreements regarding the nearly 2,600-kilometer border between the two countries.

Multiple sources reported that ongoing heavy clashes had injured at least five Pakistani soldiers, including an officer, and more than four Afghan border guards.

Pakistan and Afghanistan authorities have not commented immediately on the fighting. This is the second time in as many days that the two countries have clashed over the construction of the disputed Afghan border outpost.

The military tensions come amid Pakistan’s persistent allegations that militants linked to the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, have taken shelter on Afghan soil and are being facilitated by the country’s Taliban leaders in orchestrating cross-border terrorist attacks.

“We have, on numerous occasions, presented evidence of the activities of these terror groups, which have hideouts and sanctuaries inside Afghanistan,” Mumtaz Baloch, the Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson, reiterated Thursday.

“We urge the government of Afghanistan to take action against these terror groups and to ensure that these terror groups do not stage terror attacks against Pakistan,” she told a weekly news conference in Islamabad.

Taliban authorities deny foreign militant groups, including TTP, are present in Afghanistan, saying no one is being allowed to threaten neighboring countries from their territory.

However, recent United Nations assessments disputed the Taliban claims and backed Pakistan’s concerns that TTP operatives had intensified cross-border violence with the help of the de facto Afghan government in Kabul, which no country has officially recognized.

Since the Taliban regained power three years ago, bilateral ties have been strained due to increasing TTP attacks inside Pakistan and occasional border skirmishes, significantly undermining trade and transit ties between Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan.

  Fierce border clashes erupt between Pakistan and Afghanistan
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