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US

Biden to speak on on Afghanistan amid troop withdrawal and Taliban gains

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Facing the prospect of a Taliban takeover within a year — accompanied, most likely, by devastation and suffering — Biden hopes to convey continued support for the country. White House officials say he will detail US security and humanitarian assistance that will carry on once the troop presence ends.

He also plans to directly address the thousands of Afghans who assisted the United States during the war who are now waiting on their US visa applications, senior administration officials said. He has been under pressure to detail how exactly he will ensure the safe passage of Afghan translators and other workers who assisted American forces during the war and are now targets for the Taliban.

Biden has vowed to allow those who helped the US effort to come to the United States, but the visa process has been slow, leading officials to develop plans to relocate them to a third country. Officials said Biden will discuss plans to begin relocating those Afghans in August.

The President’s aides have said the relocation for those waiting on visas will be finished before the drawdown is complete at the end of August, without specifying how many people they plan to move or confirming where they will go while they wait.

One administration official told CNN the first flights for the interpreters could begin in two weeks.

The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, while troubling, has not deterred Biden from pushing ahead with his plans to bring US troops home.
Instead, the pace with which the Taliban have gained ground in recent weeks has, in a way, only solidified for the White House the merits of Biden’s decision, according to multiple officials, who said it has made clear the limited value of a long-term force presence.

The morning briefing from members of his national security team in the White House Situation Room will come ahead of public remarks from the President about the US role going forward in Afghanistan. He will deliver them from the East Room.

Last week, Biden bristled under questioning on Afghanistan, saying he’d rather discuss the matter after the July 4 holiday.

“It’s a rational drawdown with our allies — there’s nothing unusual about it,” Biden said on Friday of the pace of withdrawal, which has caught some in Washington by surprise.

He said he had faith in the civilian leaders in Kabul, whom he met in the Oval Office last month, despite American intelligence assessments the capital could fall to the Taliban in as little as six months after US troops depart. But he said the fractious divides within the government must be resolved.

“I am concerned that they deal with the internal issues that they have to be able to generate the kind of support they need nationwide to maintain the government,” Biden said.

The withdrawal has proceeded quickly after Biden announced in April he would wind down America’s presence in Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks that prompted the war.

Officials recently began citing an earlier date — late August — by which the last remaining troops would exit the country, with a small contingent left behind to protect diplomatic facilities.

The withdrawal is now more than 90% complete, officials say. The last US troops left Bagram Air Base last week, marking the end of the American presence at the sprawling compound that became the center of military power in Afghanistan.

Some Afghan soldiers told CNN they only found out the Americans were leaving that very day. And Afghan officials accompanying CNN on a tour of Bagram on Monday confessed they were only then getting access to much of the base and working out what had been left behind.

One senior officer said he was notified last Thursday that his forces had less than 24 hours to secure the perimeter of the base.

US intelligence services, military commanders and members of Congress have all warned that the Afghan government won’t be able to stand up to the Taliban without the backing of American firepower. The Taliban are already moving rapidly to take over districts in the northern parts of Afghanistan, leading US military commanders to raise the prospect of a civil war once US troops are gone.

Other big decisions have yet to be made, including whether and how the US will use drones in the future to target suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and how to secure the civilian airport in Kabul.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Barbara Starr and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.

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After troops exit, safety of US Embassy in Kabul top concern

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — As the end to America’s “forever war” rapidly approaches, the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic missions in Kabul are watching a worsening security situation and looking at how to respond.

In the countryside, districts are falling to the Taliban in rapid succession. America’s warlord allies are re-arming their militias, which have a violent history, raising the specter of another civil war once the U.S. withdrawal is finished, expected in August.

A U.S. Embassy spokesperson told The Associated Press that security assessments are frequent these days. Speaking on condition of anonymity in line with briefing rules, she said the embassy is currently down to 1,400 U.S. citizens and about 4,000 staff working inside the compound the size of a small town.

A well-fortified town, that is. Besides its own formidable security, the embassy lies inside Kabul’s Green Zone, where entire neighborhoods have been closed off and giant blast walls line streets closed to outside traffic. Afghan security forces guard the barricades into the district, which also houses the Presidential Palace, other embassies and senior government officials.

The only route out is Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, currently protected by U.S. and Turkish troops. Before America can declare its war over, the security of the airport will have to be settled. Ankara is in talks with Washington, the United Nations and the Afghan government to decide who will protect the airport and who will foot the bill.

For now, the airport is running without interruption, except for restrictions imposed by a deadly third COVID surge that has prompted some countries to suspend flights to Kabul. However, India is not one of them — as many as eight flights arrive weekly from India — and as a result, the virus’ delta variant, first identified in India, is rampant in Afghanistan.

In Kabul, it’s common to hear speculation about when and if the U.S. Embassy will evacuate and shut down, with images resurrected of America’s last days in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war.

Already, long before the last U.S. and NATO troops began packing to leave, American diplomats arriving at the airport were taken to the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy by helicopter. The 4-mile road trip through Kabul’s chaotic traffic was considered too dangerous.

Suicide bombers struck along that road with uncomfortable frequency.

For many of Washington’s new diplomats to Afghanistan, their view of the country and Kabul is limited to what they see from the confines of the sprawling embassy compound, hidden deep inside the Green Zone and protected by 10-foot blast walls, heavily armed U.S Marines, explosive-sniffing dogs and cameras at every corner.

An American employee of Resolute Support, the name of NATO’s military mission in Afghanistan, who arrived in the country last November, had not been outside the giant gates of the mission by June.

Citing security concerns, the U.S. spokesperson said she couldn’t reveal evacuation plans, or even if that’s a part of today’s conversation, but said the embassy has detailed plans for every scenario to protect its staff.

If there is an evacuation, it wouldn’t be the first.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul shut down in 1989, when the former Soviet Union left the country after negotiating an end to its 10-year invasion of Afghanistan. The pro-communist government collapsed three years later, followed by a brutal civil war carried out by most of the same U.S.-allied warlords who still operate in Kabul today — another reason why fear of a new civil war resonates.

The Taliban have issued statements saying they are not looking for a military takeover of Kabul. Washington has repeatedly warned that a military move on the Afghan capital would return the insurgent movement to pariah status, denying it international recognition and assistance.

Still, not long after President Joe Biden announced in mid-April that American troops would be gone by Sept. 11, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani expressed concern that Afghan forces might not be able to protect all the diplomatic missions in Kabul, according to an official familiar with the discussions. There were even suggestions that smaller embassies move into the U.S. compound for their protection.

The U.S. Embassy responded with an immediate so-called “ordered lockdown,” further restricting staff movements and new arrivals.

On April 27, the U.S. Embassy’s chargé d’affaires, Ross Wilson, tweeted that non-essential U.S. personnel would leave. The spokesperson would not say how many people left under that order, saying only that staff numbers are constantly being assessed.

Wilson blamed the departure on “increasing violence & threat reports in Kabul.” He also posted a U.S. Embassy site warning to all American citizens to leave Afghanistan immediately on any available commercial flight. And to Americans planning to visit Afghanistan, the order was clear: don’t.

The Australian Embassy closed, and most other Western embassies reduced their staff.

Most expatriate or foreign staff with international aid organizations in Kabul also left, said Naemat Rohi, deputy director of Akbar, an umbrella organization representing 167 aid organizations, including 87 international charities.

“They said they were going on R&R, but that was just so as not to create panic among their local staff, but they were leaving for their security reasons,” he said.

The exodus prompted the Taliban to issue multiple statements assuring aid groups and Afghans working for Western organizations they had nothing to fear.

But that hasn’t reassured interpreters who worked for the U.S. military. The spokesperson said some might be evacuated from Afghanistan but relocated to a third country while their immigration visas to the U.S. are processed. Thousands of applications are in the pipeline. Thousands more that were denied are being appealed.

The Taliban’s quick successes in northern Afghanistan, particularly the rapid surrender of Afghan soldiers in several instances, has heightened security fears in Kabul, where the presence of the heavily armed warlords resurrects images of the 1990s civil war.

Marshal Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek warlord accused of war crimes, some against personal enemies who were once his allies, holds a military base on a hilltop overlooking Kabul’s posh Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood. His militia has an uneasy relationship with Ghani’s government and other powerful warlords, including the new Defense Minister Bismillah Khan.

Heavily armed guards patrol Wazir Akbar Khan streets, lined with marble mansions of government officials, many of them former warlords. Though united today against the Taliban, they have a brutal history of fighting each other.

For some, a Taliban play for Kabul seems inevitable.

“After the takeover of the districts and some provinces, the Taliban will make a try to enter Kabul,” said Torek Farhadi, a former adviser to the Afghan government. “They will face the regular army, but also the warlords who have accumulated huge wealth out of war related contracts.”

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World

Afghan civilians take up arms against Taliban as foreign troops depart | Afghanistan

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Haji Ghoulam Farouq Siawshani watched the Taliban rampage across northern Afghanistan this month, weighing up the threat from militants on his doorstep. Then, 10 days ago, the former oil trader turned militia commander issued a call to arms.

“Where the Taliban go, they bring destruction, and they are one kilometre away from my village,” he told the Guardian. “We decided to respond.”

He now leads a few dozen men he armed with ageing Kalashnikovs, in Gozara district, just south of the ancient trade and cultural centre of Herat, on the country’s western border with Iran.

Foreign troops are racing to leave Afghanistan ahead of the final departure of the US military, who led and underpinned the foreign mission for nearly 20 years. They are now expected to be gone by the middle of July, and most of their Nato allies have already departed, leaving only British and Turkish forces still on the ground.

From Washington to Germany, generals and officials have claimed “mission accomplished” as their last men and women head home.

It is a message that may play well at home, but rings hollow in Afghanistan, where violence is spiralling and the Taliban threat grows by the day.

At least 50 of Afghanistan’s nearly 400 districts have fallen to the Taliban since May, the UN says. In the north, far from the group’s traditional southern stronghold, they have seized dozens, with eight falling over just two days. In several districts security forces surrendered without a fight, or elders negotiated a transfer of control.

The militants now control or contest more than half of rural Afghanistan. The cities tend to be bulwarks of security and anti-militant sentiment, but the Taliban are closing in on several, and are expected to mount a serious military push for some of the provincial capitals once the US withdrawal is complete.

“We have been betrayed by the Americans,” said Jawad, one of the militia commanders under Siawshani, who two weeks ago had a steady job as a mechanic. “We are prepared for the situation to get a lot worse.”

Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers raise their national flag at the Italian Camp Arena military base, after Italian forces left. Photograph: Hoshang Hashimi/AFP/Getty Images

Even the departing head of US forces, Gen Austin S Miller, charged with ending the US’s longest war, admits he will be leaving behind a country on the brink. Trillions of dollars and more than 2,300 US military deaths did not buy security.

“A civil war is certainly a path that can be visualised if this continues on the trajectory it’s on right now, that should be of concern to the world,” he told journalists in a rare news conference in the fast-emptying Nato headquarters in Kabul.

He has refused to be drawn on when the US departure will be complete. The deadline is officially 11 September, but the US made clear it was aiming for July, and officials told Reuters this week the final departures were expected within days. A small force of 650 troops will stay on to protect the embassy.

Allies who rely on the US for logistics including air support have mostly packed up already. On Wednesday, as Siawshani discussed tactics with the district police chief in Gozara, the last of the Italian troops who operated out of nearby Herat airbase for two decades touched down at home. Germany’s last soldiers arrived back the same day.

Peace talks in Doha, launched as part of the US withdrawal agreement, have all but stalled. Afghan officials accuse the Taliban of engaging in bad faith, to provide cover for the departure of foreign forces. With intense fighting under way, and their military position improving almost daily, there is little expectation that will change, at least in the near-term.

Joe Biden, the US president, promised his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani, ongoing backup for the huge financial cost of the country’s security efforts, and training and other technical support from outside the country. But Miller and others have refused to be drawn on how much help they can offer the embattled army and police.

Gen Austin S Miller said: ‘A civil war is certainly a path that can be visualised if this continues on the trajectory it’s on right now.’ Photograph: Ahmad Seir/AP

“What I don’t want to do is speculate what that [support] looks like in the future,” he said. One of the biggest questions is about air support, which has been vital to staving off major Taliban advances in recent years, particularly on cities such as Kunduz.

Afghanistan runs a small air force, which carries out attack operations and medical evacuations, and supplies remote and besieged outposts. But Afghan pilots and aircraft are badly stretched by the pace of the war, and for maintenance they rely on US contractors, whose future in the country is unclear. There is some support from American bomber planes, and armed drones now fly into Afghan skies from beyond its borders, but they reportedly struggle to coordinate strikes with troops on the ground.

“The Taliban launched the attack at 10pm and we were fighting until 6am. We called our commanders, we called Kabul, we called the Herat governor begging for air support, but no one arrived,” said a commando who was besieged in Obe district before it fell to the Taliban.

“In the morning we called and said we don’t need airstrikes, just pick up the dead and injured, but they never came either,” added the commando, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions.

And so as officials cast around for ways to protect their population, they are embracing militias, after years of western-backed efforts to disarm the country’s unofficial bands of armed men. After the Guardian’s meeting with Siawshani, he sat down with the district governor and police chief to discuss tactics and support.

In a different Afghanistan, the one the US once dreamed of building, the young men waiting outside for him would have had different futures. Salim Shah graduated from high school last year, and planned to study law at university. Now Jawad has given up his job as a mechanic, he is unsure how he will support his two children.

But collectively they decided that the fight for their country had become critical. Many have already lost brothers, cousins and neighbours to the Taliban. “Our main aim is protecting our family, our relatives and our land,” Jawad said.

While this iteration of the long Afghan civil war will be his first time in a conflict, many of those leading the militias were battle hardened in past cycles of violence. Siawshani first picked up a gun with the Mujahideen in the 1980s to fight the Soviets. Among his key lieutenants is Rahmatullah Afzali, a retired general who spent over three decades in the government army that Siawshani fought.

Afzali raises an eyebrow at their current alliance. “When he was doing jihad, I worked for [the then president] Najibullah. Now the Taliban have brought us together,” he says with a grin. But never has the fight been so critical.

“I have fought all over Afghanistan, I was injured 17 times, and I have never felt under as much pressure as the last four months, since Biden said he was giving Afghanistan to the Taliban.”

Akhtar Mohammad Makoii contributed reporting

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World

Biden pauses Trump policies as Blinken takes diplomatic helm

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Wednesday paused or put under review a wide swath of Trump-era foreign policies as America’s new top diplomat took the helm of the State Department.

The administration placed at least temporarily holds on several big-ticket arms sales to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, while newly installed Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he is looking urgently at a terrorism designation against Yemen’s Houthi rebels that his predecessor enacted shortly before leaving office.

On his first full day on the job, Blinken said the administration has initiated a comprehensive review of the U.S. relationship with Russia and is examining details of a U.S.-Taliban peace deal signed nearly a year ago. He said the administration had, however, asked Trump’s special envoy for Afghanistan, former ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad, to remain on the job for continuity’s sake.

Speaking to reporters just hours after his ceremonial but coronavirus-limited entrance into the State Department’s main lobby, Blinken also said the administration is willing to return to commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which former President Donald Trump withdrew from, but only if Iran returns to full compliance with the accord.

In his remarks to a demoralized diplomatic corps that was often denigrated or ignored over the past four years, Blinken vowed to rebuild the ranks of the foreign service and rely on its expertise as the Biden administration tries to restore U.S. global standing. He said the world is watching how America pursues foreign policy after Trump’s “America First” doctrine that alienated many U.S. allies.

Blinken spoke on Wednesday to the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Israel, following calls late Tuesday to his counterparts in Canada, Mexico, Japan and South Korea.

Appearing in the press briefing room, which had been rarely used during the Trump administration, Blinken pledged to respect and be accessible to journalists and to restore the State Department’s daily press briefings beginning next week.

On policy matters, Blinken said he was particularly concerned by the “foreign terrorist organization” designation for the Iran-backed Houthis that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced just 10 days before the end of the Trump administration. Many fear that move, which comes with strict U.S. sanctions, will unnecessarily exacerbate what is already one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Of all the steps that Trump and Pompeo took in their waning days “that’s the priority in my book,” Blinken said of the designation. “We’re taking a very urgent and a very close look at that.” The Treasury Department has already moved to suspend some of the sanctions affiliated with the designation, but aid groups say that mass famine could result if they are not all lifted.

The pause in the arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which were announced just days after the Nov. 6 election that Trump lost to now-President Joe Biden, is also related to Yemen. Critics fear the two Arab nations may use advanced U.S. weaponry to continue the Saudi-led war in Yemen with a significant risk of civilian casualties. The department billed the temporary suspension, which includes a halt to a $23 billion transfer of stealth F-35 fighters to the UAE, as “a routine administrative action” for a new administration.

Blinken said the sales are under review to determine if they meet U.S. national security objectives.

On Afghanistan, Blinken said the Biden administration wanted to take a detailed look at the February 2020 peace deal negotiated between the Trump administration and the Taliban to try to extricate U.S. troops from the country after nearly 20 years of war. “We need to understand exactly what is in the agreement” before deciding how to proceed, he said. Khalilzad, the chief U.S. negotiator, has been asked to remain on the job so he can “continue the vital work he is performing.”

On Iran, Blinken repeated comments Biden has made previously and that he himself made to lawmakers at his confirmation hearing just last week. Blinken said the administration is prepared to ease sanctions that the Trump administration re-imposed on Iran as long as Iran returns to full compliance with the 2015 deal. At that point, Blinken said the administration would look to strengthen and lengthen the terms of the accord. But, he said, “we’re a long way from that point.”

Biden has vowed to reverse Trump’s approach, which had alienated many traditional U.S. allies who perceived it as a hardline unilateral approach that left no room for negotiation. Blinken said that after four years, the United States would again engage with allies on a reciprocal, rather than a purely transactional, basis.

“The world is watching us intently right now,” Blinken said. “They want to know if we can heal our nation. They want to see whether we will lead with the power of our example and if we will put a premium on diplomacy with our allies and partners to meet the great challenges of our time — like the pandemic, climate change, the economic crisis, threats to democracies, fights for racial justice and the danger to our security and global stability posed by our rivals and adversaries.”

Blinken, a 58-year-old longtime Biden confidant, was confirmed to be the 71st secretary of state by the Senate on Tuesday in a 78-22 vote. The position is the most senior Cabinet post, with the secretary fourth in the line of presidential succession. A former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, Blinken pledged that U.S. global leadership is back and that the State Department will be “central” to that..

Blinken inherited a deeply demoralized and depleted career workforce at the State Department. Neither of his two immediate predecessors under Trump, Rex Tillerson or Pompeo, offered strong resistance to repeated attempts to gut the agency. Those were thwarted only by congressional intervention.

Blinken said he would promote and protect the foreign service, which had been sidelined during the Trump era, and that after four years of atrophy the State Department will once again play a leading role in America’s relations with the world.

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World

Biden walking a high wire with Russia ahead of Putin call

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has been quickly thrown into a high-wire balancing act with Russia as he seeks to toughen his administration’s stance against Vladimir Putin while preserving room for diplomacy in a post-Donald Trump era.

The relationship is sure to be different than the one Putin enjoyed with Trump, who was enamored of the Russian leader and sought his approval, casting doubt on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and involvement in a massive hack last year. Despite this conciliatory approach, his administration toed a tough line against Moscow, imposing sanctions on the country, Russian companies and business leaders for issues ranging from Ukraine to energy supplies and attacks on dissidents.

Unlike his immediate predecessors, Biden has not held out hope for a “reset” in relations with Russia but has instead indicated he wants to manage differences with the former Cold War foe without necessarily resolving them or improving ties. And, with a heavy domestic agenda and looming decisions needed on Iran and China, a direct confrontation with Russia is not something he seeks.

When Biden first speaks with Putin, he’s expected to call Putin out for the arrest of opposition figure Alexei Navalny and the weekend crackdown on his supporters, raise charges that Russian security services were behind the recent massive cybersecurity breach, and press allegations that Russia offered the Taliban bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Biden must be mindful of his own proposal to extend for five years the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control treaty that is due to expire in early February.

On Monday, Biden told reporters that he had not yet decided how to respond to the Navalny situation but expressed hope that the U.S. and Russia could cooperate in areas where both see benefit.

“I find that we can both operate in the mutual self-interest of our countries as a New START agreement and make it clear to Russia that we are very concerned about their behavior, whether it’s Navalny, whether it’s SolarWinds or reports of bounties on heads of Americans in Afghanistan,” Biden said.

Biden has already ordered the intelligence community to launch reviews of each of those issues, according to the White House, which on Friday said the U.S. proposal to extend New START would be accompanied by a reckoning on the other matters.

That approach has met with approval from some former U.S. diplomats who have dealt with Russia and are looking forward to how Biden’s team, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his nominee to be the No. 3 at the State Department, Victoria Nuland, delineate the contours of Russia policy.

Nuland, in particular, is reviled by Putin and his aides for her support of pro-Western politicians in Ukraine and held the Europe portfolio at the State Department in President Barack Obama’s second term. She and Sullivan are said to share opinions about how to deal with Moscow, taking a tough line on human rights and Russia’s intentions in eastern and central Europe while keeping an open channel to the Kremlin on other matters.

But their starting position is complicated, they say, particularly given Putin’s experience in dealing with Trump, who frequently undercut his own administration’s hawkish stance on Russia by privately trying to cozy up to the Russian leader.

“It’s hard but it’s doable,” said Daniel Fried, a U.S. ambassador to Poland and assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the George W. Bush administration. “They’re going to have to figure this out on the fly, but it’s important to pursue New START without hesitation and push back on the Navalny arrest and other issues without guilt.”

“They need to do both and not let Putin tell them he won’t accept New START unless they drop Navalny, SolarWinds or Afghanistan,” said Fried, who is now with the Atlantic Council. “You have to push back and you can’t let Putin set the terms.”

Putin, however, may be cautious given his uncertain domestic standing in the aftermath of the pro-Navalny protests that took place in more than 100 cities over the weekend.

Biden’s team has already reacted strongly to the crackdown on Navalny supporters over the weekend in which more than 3,700 people were arrested at the demonstrations across Russia, including more than 1,400 in Moscow.

Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and Putin’s fiercest critic, was arrested Jan. 17 as he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had spent nearly five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities deny the accusations.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki and State Department spokesman Ned Price have urged the immediate and unconditional release of Navalny, as well as those who were detained in the crackdown.

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