Ebenso deutlich wie in der Gesamtbewertung wird die Enquete-Kommission des Bundestags bei der Auflistung der einzelnen Verfehlungen und Versäumnisse:
„Eine fortlaufende, selbstkritische Bestandsaufnahme hinsichtlich der sehr hoch gesetzten Ziele hat nicht ausreichend stattgefunden“, kritisiert das Gremium und nimmt damit sämtliche mit dem Einsatz befasste Bundesregierungen in den Jahren 2001 bis 2021 aufs Korn.
Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, who oversees U.S. Central Command, ordered the additional interviews “to ensure we do our due diligence” with information that came to light after the military closed its investigation of the incident, Michael Lawhorn, a Central Command spokesman, said in a statement. By itself, the move does not formally reopen the investigation, completed in November 2021, but the general could determine that doing so is necessary once the additional interviews are complete.
(…)
The attack’s suspected mastermind was killed by the Taliban earlier this year, U.S. officials disclosed in April.
While the third Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan‘s Neighboring Countries is scheduled in China‘s Anhui Province on Wednesday and Thursday, China will also host a Troika Plus meeting there with Russia, the US and Pakistan over the Afghan situation. Observers said that against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, the upcoming meetings on Afghanistan will help congregate the stake-holding parties to help Afghanistan despite their grudges, which showcases China‘s efforts to promote regional stability and its capability to mediate heated issues.
Im Sondierungspapier einer möglichen künftigen Regierungskoalition von SPD, Grünen und FDP ist bereits festgehalten: Ein Parlamentarischer Untersuchungsausschuss soll im Bundestag die Geschehnisse rund um die militärische Evakuierung in Kabul durchleuchten. Und eine sogenannte Enquete-Kommission soll ergänzend die deutsche Afghanistan-Politik unter die Lupe nehmen. Braucht es da, zusätzlich, noch eine teure Ausschreibung?
It happened in my area of responsibility, so I‘m the responsible officer for that strike,” McKenzie said during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
McKenzie said he was under “no pressure” and “no one in my chain of command below me was under any pressure to take that strike.”
Austin said military officials had discussed “a range of possibilities,” but no one planned for the possibility the Afghan government would collapse as quickly as it did.
“We certainly did not plan against a collapse of the government in 11 days,” Austin told lawmakers in response to a lawmaker question.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chair General Mark Milley, and General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, testify on the Afghanistan withdrawal.
The committee‘s chair, the hawkish New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez, pulled no punches in his opening statement, threatening to subpoena Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other Biden officials who decline to voluntarily appear before the committee.
„Mr. Secretary, the execution of the U.S. withdrawal was clearly and fatally flawed,“ Menendez told Blinken.
Amid reports of intense fighting in the Panjshir, Pakistan‘s powerful intelligence chief made a surprise visit to Kabul on Saturday.
Hameed arrived in Kabul Saturday morning, leading a delegation of „senior Pakistani officials“, to discuss security, economic and trade issues, according to Pakistani media reports.
(01.09.2021)
Chris Bryant then asks about reports that British officials told people to go to the airport on the very day of the terrorist attack.
Dominic Raab says the travel advice was changed the night before the attack, and people were told not to come to the airport. The team was shifted from the Barons Hotel through to the airport to protect them.
He says he saw the report and „I need to investigate it“, but doesn‘t reject the possibility.
(16.08.2021)
Naturally, the United States has financed the Afghan war with borrowed money. Brown University researchers estimate that more than $500 billion in interest has already been paid (included in the $2.26 trillion total sum), and they figure that by 2050 the cost of interest alone on our Afghan war debt could reach $6.5 trillion. That amounts to $20,000 for each and every U.S. citizen.
The Turkish embassy in Kabul has returned to its building in the city and Ankara will maintain its diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
NATO countries have been pulling out their diplomatic missions in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s victory two weeks ago.
The Taliban appointed Hajji Mohammad Idress as acting general director of the central bank „in efforts to align and arrange banking procedures and find a solution to people‘s trade problem and difficulties,“ Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on his social media account.
Nach Angaben der Bundeswehr kam es zu dem Schusswechsel gegen 04.15 Uhr (MESZ) am Nordtor des Airports. Das Tor ist jedoch geschlossen. Die deutsche Botschaft hatte erst kurz zuvor gewarnt, dass es an den Zugängen immer noch sehr häufig zu gefährlichen Situationen und bewaffneten Auseinandersetzungen komme.
It‘s not clear who started the fighting and German officials said the three Afghans were hurt by „unknown attackers“.
The Afghan forces are thought to be part of an army contingent who have been helping international forces, having refused to surrender to the Taliban.
Our first priority in Kabul is getting American citizens out of the country as quickly and as safely as possible. At my direction, the State Department continues to reach out to the remaining Americans we have identified by phone, e-mail, and other means to ascertain their whereabouts and their plans.
We’re executing a plan to move groups of these Americans to safety and to safely and effectively move them to the airport compound.
For security reasons, I’m not going to go into the detail of what these plans entail, but I will say again today that I have said before: Any American who wants to get home will get home.
We’ve also been evacuating the citizens of our NATO Allies and our partners, including their diplomats, their embassy staff who remain in Afghanistan and to get them back to their homes as well.
And as we do this, we’re also working to move our Afghan allies, who stood with us side by side, and other vulnerable Afghans such as women leaders and journalists, out of the country.
In recent days, the Qatari ambassador to Afghanistan has escorted small groups of Americans into the airport, according to two people familiar with the effort who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation. American citizens have been instructed to meet at rally points in the city, and the ambassador then accompanies them to guarantee safe passage, these people said. Qatar has served as an intermediary between the United States and the Taliban at several stages of the American withdrawal, sponsoring peace talks and serving as the first point of refuge for many evacuees.
Der Sender CNN berichtet von der Gefahr eines Anschlags der Terrorgruppe „Islamischer Staat“ und beruft sich dabei auf Quellen aus dem US-Verteidigungsministerium. Der Sprecher des Pentagons wollte bei einer Pressekonferenz dazu keine Details nennen. Die USA wollen eigentlich zum 31. August den Abzug ihrer Truppen abschließen. Daher drängt die Zeit: Die Luftbrücke könnte dann nicht mehr aufrechterhalten werden.
The US Embassy said on Saturday that American citizens in Afghanistan should stay away from Kabul’s airport, the only way out, “because of potential security threats outside the gates.”
The advisory directly contradicted President Biden’s insistence on Friday that Americans could proceed to the airport freely.
The Genius Media Nigeria reports that a security alert on Saturday told US citizens to stay away due to possible “security threats outside the gates”.
(21.08.2021)
A new threat from the Islamic State’s (ISIS) branch in Afghanistan prompted a new warning from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul that urged Americans to not come to the besieged airport in Kabul, officials confirmed to Fox News on Saturday.
(21.08.2021)
The development directly contradicts President Biden’s insistence Friday that Americans could proceed to the airport freely from the Afghan capital and that an “agreement” with the Taliban had been reached over the issue.
Auf einen „interessanten“ Nebenaspekt, worum es den US bei ihrem Afghanistan Einsatz auch gegangen zu sein scheint, weist der Hardliner John Bolton hin, die viele Jahre in führenden Positionen am Krieg mitgestrickt hatte.
„I didn’t hear a single thing that would give comfort to the very allies you spoke about. I’ve heard from people in the region. They are frightened by the American collapse—the American collapse of temerity and strength and power that we demonstrated for four years that had frankly kept the Taliban at bay and prevented precisely what you’re precisely seeing happen today, and I didn’t hear a single thing that would frighten a single Taliban who thinks there’s any risk that this administration would impose any cost on them for their activities, for what they are doing to Americans today and holding them hostage—not permitting them to get into the airport in Kabul so that we can get them home to their families. „
(23. Juni 2010)
Am Montag, den 22.Juni, veröffentlichte die Washington Post auf ihrer Webseite den neunundsiebzig Seiten langen Bericht des „Unterausschusses für Nationale Sicherheit und Auswärtige Angelegenheiten“ mit dem Titel „Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan“, für den der Leiter des Ausschusses, der Republikaner John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), verantwortlich zeichnete (1, 2).
Der „Unterausschuss für Nationale Sicherheit und Auswärtige Angelegenheiten“ ist ständiger Teil des „Ausschuss für Aufsicht und Reform der Regierung“ des Repräsentantenhauses.
Die Veröffentlichung des Berichts fällt mit den Machtkämpfen um die Kompetenzen der CIA, der Geheimdienste des US-Verteidigungsministeriums und den eigenmächtigen Spionagediensten des US-Militärs (wie diejenigen des General Petraeus) um die Kontrolle der Oberhoheit in den besetzten Gebieten zusammen, in denen sich Geschäfte mit Hilfe korrupter Politiker in mehrfacher Milliardenhöhe abwickeln lassen – die Möglichkeiten zum Geldverdienen reichen von der Opiumproduktion, den Rüstungsgeschäften und Waffenhandel, Lizenzen für die Ausbeutung der Rohstoffe, Aufträge für die Bauunternehmen bis hin in alle Bereiche des öffentlichen Lebens einer Gesellschaft. Es geht um die reine Ausbeutung eines Landes.
(2.9.2015)
Former CIA director David Petraeus is advocating giving arms to members of al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida off-shoot, to beat Isis. That is madness
US-Präsident Biden und die Bundesregierung werfen der afghanischen Armee fehlenden Kampfwillen vor. Dem widerspricht im Interview mit STRG_F der ehemalige General und Ex-CIA-Chef Petraeus. Er verteidigt die afghanischen Soldaten.
– Petraeus commanded forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and helped formulate ‚counterinsurgency‘ strategies
– He criticized Biden‘s decision to pull out of Afghanistan in a New Yorker interview
– Disagreed with decision to pull out liaison, special forces trainers, contractors
– Said it began an epidemic of ‚surrender‘ for the Afghans
– Called departure ‚premature‘ but didn‘t say how much more time was needed
– Warned Al Qaeda could reemerge
– Acknowledged ‚overbuilt‘ nation-building aspects, but said it was necessary for a hand-off
– Biden said the U.S. could not fight when Afghans were unwilling to do so
– ‚To say that the Afghans won’t fight for their country needs an asterisk‘
Now, Justin Sink of Bloomberg.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You just said that you would keep a laser-focus on counterterrorism efforts and that you don’t see as great of a threat of terrorism from Afghanistan as other parts of the world. But if you and your administration so badly misassessed how quickly the Taliban would sweep through Afghanistan and we no longer have an embassy there from which to run intelligence operations, how can you at all be confident of your assessment of the risk of terrorism and the ability of the U.S. to conduct over-the-horizon missions to keep it in check? Can you tell Americans that they’re safe and will remain safe from terror attacks in Afghanistan?
THE PRESIDENT: I think you’re comparing apples and oranges. One question was whether or not the Afghan forces we trained up would stay and fight in their own civil war they had going on.
No one — I shouldn’t say “no one” — the consensus was that it was highly unlikely that in 11 days they’d collapse and fall, and the leader of Afghanistan would flee the country.
The President is scheduled to speak to the nation at 1 p.m. ET from the East Room of the White House. His remarks will be broadcast live on television and online on C-Span, as well as on the White House‘s YouTube channel.
He said: „The UK Government’s overriding priority has been to secure Kabul airport so that flights can leave.
„The call was delegated to a Minister of State because I was prioritising security and capacity at the airport on the direct advice of the Director and the Director General overseeing the crisis response.
„In any event, the Afghan Foreign Minister agreed to take the call, but was unable to because of the rapidly deteriorating situation.“
It has been reported that help for interpreters who supported British troops was delayed because Mr Raab was “unavailable” to make a call to call Afghan foreign minister Hanif Atmar on Friday.
Mr Raab reportedly delegated the call to a junior minister.
The briefing, which is believed to be the first in-person meeting with lawmakers, comes as four separate congressional committees have pledged to conduct oversight efforts into the administration’s moves in withdrawing from Afghanistan.
(18.08.2021)
(18.08.2021)
“There was nothing that I saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.”
His comments came just one day after sources told the New York Times that US intelligence officials had been warning of a quick Taliban takeover in Afghanistan — even as President Biden was publicly downplaying the threat.
Bundesaußenminister Heiko Maas (SPD) hat die Arbeit des Bundesnachrichtendienstes (BND) zu Afghanistan kritisiert. „Der BND hat offensichtlich eine falsche Lageeinschätzung vorgenommen, so wie andere Dienste auch“, sagte der Minister dem „Spiegel“ in einem am Freitag veröffentlichten Interview. Damit habe der Geheimdienst eine erhebliche Verantwortung für das außenpolitische Debakel rund um den Afghanistan-Einsatz.
Politiker von Grünen, FDP und Linken behielten sich an diesem Donnerstag die Einsetzung eines solchen Gremiums im Bundestag nach der Wahl am 26. September vor.
Aus den Reihen der Linken und der AfD kamen Rücktrittsforderungen, vor allem an die Adresse von Außenminister Heiko Maas (SPD).
And Biden’s Monday characterization of the terrorist threat has some analysts like Anderson wondering just how narrow an AUMF the administration would support, particularly if it’s one that that includes geographic limitations.
“Their logic, now the way they are describing counterterrorism operations, sounds like the last three presidential administrations who have said, ‘This is why we can’t take away the 2001 AUMF,’” said Anderson, a former attorney-adviser at the State Department.
Among the items seized by the Taliban are Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft.
Photos have also circulated of Taliban fighters clutching U.S.-made M4 carbines and M16 rifles instead of their iconic AK-47s. And the militants have been spotted with U.S. Humvees and mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles.
(18.08.2021)
Die zuständigen Behörden hätten deutlich gemacht, dass nach ihren Erkenntnissen die Entwicklungen vom Wochenende in Kabul und Afghanistan nicht absehbar waren, sagte der Vorsitzende des Parlamentarischen Kontrollgremiums, Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU), nach einer Sitzung des Gremiums mit der Befragung von BND-Präsident Bruno Kahl am Donnerstag in einer abgestimmten Erklärung.
Der Ausschuss, so ZDF-Korrespondentin Ines Trams, müsse aber noch herausfinden, warum die Geheimdienste die Lage so völlig falsch eingeschätzt hatten. Noch am vergangenen Freitag habe der BND in einem Lagebericht geschrieben, die Taliban hätten nicht vor, Kabul einzunehmen.
Maas zufolge versucht die Bundesregierung derzeit, auch über Drittstaaten wie Katar Einfluss auf die Taliban zu nehmen. Derzeit gebe es aber noch „keine belastbaren Sicherheitszusagen“, dass die Taliban afghanische Staatsangehörige frei zum Flughafen in Kabul passieren lassen, sagte Maas.
Zu spät gehandelt, zu schlecht vorbereitet: In Afghanistan hat die Bundesregierung viele Fehler gemacht und zugegeben. Interesse an einer Aufarbeitung hat sie derzeit nicht.
FDP-Vize Wolfgang Kubicki forderte den Rücktritt der Kanzlerin, der Bundesverteidigungsministerin und des Bundesaußenministers. „Sie haben das größte außenpolitische Desaster seit Bestehen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zu verantworten“, so Kubicki.
A Taliban commander and senior leader of the Haqqani Network militant group, Anas Haqqani, met for talks with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a Taliban official told Reuters on Wednesday. Karzai was accompanied by Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council.
A spokesman for the Russian embassy in Kabul, Nikita Ishchenko, was quoted as saying: “The collapse of the regime…is most eloquently characterised by how Ghani escaped from Afghanistan: four cars were filled with money, they tried to shove another part of the money into a helicopter, but not everything fit.
Asked by the Associated Press about how he knew the details of Ghani’s departure, Mr Ishchenko said “well, we are working here,” without offering any more details.
A journalist who raised the Afghan national flag in defiance at a protest in the northern city of Jalalabad on Wednesday was shot dead by the jihadists, according to local reports. Zahidullah Nazirzada had joined defiant crowds in raising the tricolour, now outlawed and replaced by the Taliban‘s white banner.
Footage from Kabul showed a car thief on Tuesday with his face covered in tar, strapped up to the back of a truck and his hands tied behind his back as people gathered around to gawp. A traffic cop stood nearby apparently powerless.
A young woman was shot dead for allegedly refusing to wear a burqa by marauding jihadists when they captured the northern town of Taloqan in Takhar province last week, according to a post widely shared on social media.
Das Kabinett hat das Mandat für den Evakuierungseinsatz der Bundeswehr auf den Weg gebracht – der Bundestag soll kommende Woche abstimmen.
On Tuesday, Kaag told NOS broadcaster that although a Dutch military plane was able to land, the short turnaround time at the airport controlled by American troops meant that they were unable to board. ‘There was a half-hour slot to get people on the tarmac,’ she said. ‘Lots of people were there, and at the airport gates, with their families. I think it is awful.’ She had called for the 6,000 American troops, who have been sent back into Afghanistan after their withdrawal, to allow people more time for boarding.
Erneut chaotische Szenen am Flughafen Kabul: Mehrere niederländische Staatsangehörige wurden auf dem Weg zu ihrem Evakuierungsflug vom US-Militär aufgehalten. Hunderte Menschen harren weiter rund um den Airport Kabul aus.
Veterans For Peace has previously condemned the U.S. „forever wars“ against „terror“ and called for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and other places in the world. We unequivocally believe that war is not the answer to any problem and that there is no military solution in Afghanistan.
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was shameful and poorly executed. We have left too many behind. It was only after veteran and media outcry over leaving dedicated translators and their families, people who risked their lives for us that the U.S. decided, too late, to include them in our withdrawal. Many Afghans have been blocked by callus immigration policy and „Muslim Bans“ from seeking safety in the United States, from the destabilization in Afghanistan that the U.S. created. Caring for refugees and civilians fleeing from conflict is basic decency, and the United States fails to act with the urgency required to protect people. Casual disregard for Afghan lives continues on all levels.
The ineffectiveness and collapse of Afghanistan’s military and governing institutions largely substantiates Biden’s skepticism that US-led efforts to prop up the government in Kabul would ever enable it to stand on its own feet. The international community has spent nearly 20 years, many thousands of lives, and trillions of dollars to do good by Afghanistan – taking down al-Qaeda; beating back the Taliban; supporting, advising, training, and equipping the Afghan military; bolstering governing institutions; and investing in the country’s civil society.
Biden deserves credit for facing the facts and doing the right thing. His recent predecessors either were dissuaded from taking the same step by egregiously wrong military and foreign policy advice or else blanched at being labeled the president who lost a war. Biden will take the hit, but the simple truth is that we have not so much abandoned Afghanistan as Afghanistan has abandoned us, or more precisely, never joined us in the first place.
Then there was also the US intelligence agencies, which must have been channeling Hemingway’s very words. Just 4 days ago they estimated that Kabul could fall in 90 days and then suddenly revised the figure to 72 hours.
But nothing could top the blinky Washington careerist who now sits in the big chair at Foggy Bottom:
“If there is a significant deterioration in security … I don’t think it’s going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday.”
– Anthony Blinken, US secretary of state.
Alas, it surely did. And now the same medieval brutes who were originally recruited and trained by the CIA in the 1980s and who ruled Afghanistan with a bloody reign of terror from 1996-2001, in fact, were in the president’s office within hours of Ghani’s flight. Except during the interim, the Grim Reaper of War had racked-up a horrendous butchers bill …
(14.08.2021)
The Biden administration has been considering using third countries to process the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants, and on Thursday the Pentagon announced it would send around 1,000 troops to Qatar in the coming days to facilitate the processing. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke with his Qatari counterpart on Thursday and the State Department said he thanked Qatar for supporting „U.S. efforts to provide safety and security to Afghan nationals.“
(17.08.2021)
A top Taliban official has met with a Qatari official before leaving the country for Afghanistan.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar met with Qatar‘s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Tuesday.
“We have expelled the foreigners and I would like to congratulate the whole nation on this.
This is pride, not only for a limited number of people. This is a proud moment for the whole nation. This kind of pride is rare when it can be achieved. The whole nation, after the whole history of the nation and therefore, on the base of this I would like to congratulate the whole nation and I would like to welcome you.
Freedom and independence seeking is a legitimate right of every nation. The Afghans also use their legitimate right after 20 years of struggle for freedom and for emancipating the country from occupation, this was our right and we achieved this right.“
Frauen sollen arbeiten, sie seien Teil der Gesellschaft. Man werde allen verzeihen, „die gegen uns waren“, so die Taliban bei ihrem ersten offiziellen Auftritt. An den versöhnlichen Worten haben viele Menschen in Afghanistan Zweifel.
Baradar, who was reported to have been one of Taliban founder Mullah Omar`s most trusted commanders, was captured in 2010 by security forces in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi and released in 2018 and was relocated to Qatar.