(February 26, 2026)
The renewed political and economic engagement with the Taliban comes at a time of surging cross-border violence between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has plunged relations between the two neighbors to a dangerously low point. Just this week, tensions flared back up after a fresh round of deadly strikes and clashes. And nuclear-armed India wasted no time in strongly condemning Islamabad over the attacks and voiced support for Kabul’s sovereignty.
At the time, the CIA would have done its own vetting of him through a variety of databases, including the National Counterterrorism Center database, to see if he had any known ties to terrorist groups. The CIA did its own vetting before he started working with them and kept the identities of those they worked with secret, the official said.
NCTC would have vetted him again during Operation Allies Welcome in 2021 for any ties to terrorism before he was allowed into the US. He was clean then as well and did not show any ties to terror organizations, per the senior US official.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, declined to provide a motive for Wednesday afternoon’s brazen act of violence which occurred just blocks from the White House. The presence of troops in the nation’s capital and other cities around the country has become a political flashpoint.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan man who allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, previously served in one of Afghanistan‘s elite counterterrorism units, according to AfghanEvac, a nonprofit run by U.S. veterans and others who served in Afghanistan.
The unit was operated by the CIA with direct U.S. intelligence and military support, according to AfghanEvac.
Washingtons Bürgermeisterin und auch die örtliche Polizei haben sich immer wieder gegen den Einsatz der Nationalgarde in ihrer Stadt ausgesprochen. Der Bundesdistrikt Washington D.C. hatte sogar eine Klage gegen die Trump-Regierung eingereicht – und recht bekommen. Eine Bundesrichterin entschied vor etwa einer Woche, dass der immer wieder verlängerte Einsatz der Nationalgarde in der Stadt illegal sei.
Von dieser Entscheidung zeigt sich der US-Präsident aber unbeeindruckt. Nach den Schüssen auf die beiden Nationalgardisten fühlt er sich im Recht. Seinen Pentagon-Chef hat er jetzt sogar angewiesen, noch weitere 500 Nationalgardisten in die Hauptstadt zu schicken.
The breach revealed the names of Afghans who had helped British forces in Afghanistan before they withdrew from the country in chaotic circumstances in 2021.
The details emerged after a legal ruling known as a superinjunction was lifted. The injunction had been granted in 2023 after the Ministry of Defence argued that a public disclosure of the breach could put people at risk of extra-judicial killing or serious violence by the Taliban.
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.