Posted at 10:09 REACTION FROM PAKISTAN: GLEE - AND WARNINGS
When the news of Taliban taking over Kabul broke on Pakistani news channels, the responses were mixed.
But most - including some Pakistani politicians and a majority among the religious parties - couldn’t hide their glee that America had “lost”.
Many began pointing to a clip of the late former director-general of Pakistan’s spy agency – called the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - describing the US withdrawal as “his vision”.
In the May 2014 clip, Hamid Gul, also known as the "Father of the Taliban", can be heard saying that "when history will be written it will be said that ISI defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with America's help.
“But it will also be added that ISI defeated America (in Afghanistan) with America's help."
Not everyone is overjoyed at developments over the border – and warnings have begun to emerge aimed at those who might hope to pull strings from afar.
Pakistan has long been accused of playing a paradoxical role in Afghanistan. The country has previously been accused by the US, India, and most importantly by its own politicians and activists of using Afghanistan as a "backyard" to provide safe haven for militants to be used against India.
Senator Sherry Rehman, talking to the BBC, said that it would be a mistake for Pakistan to once again see Afghanistan as a “strategic backyard”.
Meanwhile, the former chairperson for Pakistan’s senate committee for human rights, Afrasiab Khattak, has come under fire from the state for his blunt criticism of Pakistan’s previous mistakes.
“Basically [the Taliban] are against the concept of a modern state,” he said. “Unfortunately, they are being supported from the outside.
“And those supporting them will pay a heavy price just the way they did in the past."
Posted at 8:10 'TALIBAN INTENSIFYING HUNT FOR PEOPLE WHO COLLABORATED WITH US AND NATO TROOPS'
A UN document says the Taliban are intensifying their hunt for people who worked for and collaborated with Nato and US forces.
The confidential paper was produced by the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses, which provides the UN with intelligence information.
“The Taliban are arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves to the Taliban,” the document, seen by the BBC said.
It said that those at particular risk were people with positions in the military, police and investigative units.
“The Taliban have been conducting advance mapping of individuals prior to take take-over of all major cities,” it said.
It added that the militants were screening for individuals while permitting some evacuation of foreign personnel from Kabul airport but the situation there remained “chaotic”.
According to the report, the Taliban are recruiting new informer networks to collaborate with the new regime.
Posted at 7:02 PROTESTS ON INDEPENDENCE DAY
National flag-waving Afghans have been seen protesting in several cities on Thursday, which marks the 102nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence and falls at a time of great uncertainty and upheaval for the country.
One clip shared on social media appears to show a crowd in Kabul chanting "our flag, our identity" about the black, red and green tricolour national flag.
The Reuters news agency, citing witnesses, reports that several people may have been killed at a similar protest on Thursday in Asadabad - either by gunfire or in stampedes the firing triggered.
The reports of casualties come a day after several deaths were also reported at flag-related demonstrations in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Videos on social media have shown some protesters appearing to remove and replace Taliban flags in places - pocket displays of defiance against the group's swift rise to power.
Posted at 6:46 UK AMBASSADOR PERSONALLY PROCESSING VISAS IN KABUL
The UK's Ambassador in Afghanistan, Sir Laurie Bristow, has remained in Kabul to help the evacuation of remaining Britons and has also been personally processing visa applications at the airport.
He has been praised for putting his own evacuation plans on hold, with people including the leader of the UK's Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer thanking him for staying behind to help.
Sir Laurie, who only took up his position as Ambassador in June, said on Wednesday that his team was working on the basis that they have "days not weeks" to get British nationals and Afghan's who worked with the UK's armed forces to safety.
While several countries have already evacuated their embassy staff, Bristow joined the French and American Ambassadors, who have also remained at Kabul airport.
#1
“But it will also be added that ISI defeated America (in Afghanistan) with America's help."
Yeah, we gave the Paks billions of dollars every year the whole time we were fighting the Taliban and they no doubt used the money to arm and supply the Taliban so, in effect, we were fighting ourselves. Don't tell me the money went into different buckets. Money is fungible like water. One bucket gets low and you just pour more water into it from another bucket. Our own government gave aid and comfort to the enemy they sent our troops to fight. Isn't that the very definition of treason?
And how do you suppose our military personnel feel knowing that their own government was supplying their enemy?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/19/2021 13:29 Comments ||
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#4
Imagine if Trump had similarly cleaned house in 2017...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/19/2021 14:35 Comments ||
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#5
The biggest supplier to the Taliban were the Afghan government and military officials stealing and reselling American supplies and weapons.
If our government had evidence of these thefts and did not prosecute then it's just as bad as giving it directly to the Taliban. Either way, sending our troops to fight in those circumstances was criminal.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/19/2021 16:20 Comments ||
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#6
And I say the US DoS and even the DoD are riddled with islamophiles and compromised elements who are tolerant of if not inwardly cheering every successive victory of the global jihad; who paper over every major defeat and outrage and are bent upon weakening America. John Brennan anyone?
[Breitbart] The Taliban is killing people in Afghanistan they find with copies of the Bible on their mobile phones, a Christian non-profit denounced on Tuesday.
According to SAT-7, an organization that broadcasts Christian programs to churches and Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, the Taliban is using "spies and informants" to persecute the Christian minority in the country.
"We’re hearing from reliable sources that the Taliban demand people’s phones, and if they find a downloaded Bible on your device, they will kill you immediately," said SAT-7 North America President Dr. Rex Rogers told Religion News Service. "It’s incredibly dangerous right now for Afghans to have anything Christian on their phones. The Taliban have spies and informants everywhere."
Other Christian nonprofits and ministries that specialize in assisting persecuted Christians around the world have been sounding the alarm as well, emphasizing the ruthless nature of Taliban leadership. A Christian contact of one Release International partner described the situation as "dire" in a report published Monday. Release International is a Christian ministry that also assists persecuted Christians around the world.
"Our brothers and sisters in Christ are telling us how afraid they are. In the areas that the Taliban now control girls are not allowed to go to school and women are not allowed to leave their homes without a male companion," said Micah, a name assigned to him to protect his identity.
#1
Not a crime as far as UN and USDoS are concerned.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/19/2021 10:48 Comments ||
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#2
There will be a reckoning, something no human rights laws and no geneva conventions will obstruct. May it come soon and those that would be kings be seen running for their miserable lives.
#3
A couple of well made movies based on books by local authors to set the flavor of how the Taliban, and others in that part of the world, operate - 'Osama' and 'The Kite Runner'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/19/2021 12:01 Comments ||
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#4
I saw Osama at a film festival in Delhi, I think. Hearbreaking it was. But even in the so called liberal Karzai regime, rural Afghanistan lived the same way.
[UPI] Aug. 19 (UPI) -- For the second straight day, throngs of protesters took to the streets in Afghanistan to show disapproval for the abrupt Taliban takeover, as U.S. President Joe Biden said troops may be kept there until all Americans are safely evacuated.
Officials said that several people involved in the new demonstrations were killed when Taliban fighters opened fire on them in Asadabad, which is located in eastern Afghanistan about 110 miles east of Kabul.
The demonstrators were waving the Afghan national flag while celebrating the country's independence from Britain on Aug. 19, 1919.
Multiple protesters were also killed Wednesday after clashing with Taliban fighters in Jalalabad, Afghanistan's fifth-largest city.
[Daily Mail UK] The Badri 313 is reportedly the Talibans special commando unit in Afghanistan
Reports coming out of the country say they are patrolling the streets of Kabul
The Taliban have previously released video and pictures of the unit's soldiers
They are shown as being equipped and armed with modern military hardware
This is rather than the typical Salwar Kameez and AK-47 slung over the shoulder that has become synonymous with farmer-turned-terrorist Taliban fighters
#5
Too Many Pak Rats running around - We need a MASS Exterminator - I know, WHO can send them all the COVID JABS they need for free, courtesy and with the cooperation of Uncle Joe/SAM - Forced Vaxx, Yeah that's the ticket !!!!
[IsraelTimes] The Taliban ...Arabic for students... have blown up the statue of a Shiite militia leader who fought against them during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, according to photos circulating on Wednesday, sowing further doubt about their claims to have become more moderate.
The krazed killers’ every action in their sudden sweep to power is being watched closely. They insist they have changed and won’t impose the same draconian restrictions they did when they last ruled Afghanistan, all but eliminating women’s rights, carrying out public executions, and banning television and music.
As Afghans and the international community look to see if the Taliban will make good on their promises, photos circulated on social media of the destroyed statue. It depicted Abdul Ali Mazari, a militia leader killed by the Taliban in 1996, when the Islamic hard boyz seized power from rival warlords. Mazari was a champion of Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara ...a grouping of Dari-speaking people of Sino-Tibetan descent inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistain. They are predominantly Shia Moslems and not particularly warlike, which makes them favored targets... minority, Shiites who were persecuted under the Sunni Taliban’s earlier rule.
The statue stood in the central Bamyan province, where the Taliban infamously blew up two massive 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha carved into a mountain in 2001, shortly before the US-led invasion that drove them from power. The Taliban claimed the Buddhas violated Islam’s prohibition on idolatry.
#3
As long as the Federal Reserve is holding all of Afghanistan's gold in New York and Afghanistan's cash reserves are in banks outside of the country the Taliban are flat broke. They will be taking hostages as bargaining chips as soon as they realize this.
#9
He saves his aggression for when his wife makes him go out to buy her Jheri Curl...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/19/2021 8:49 Comments ||
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#10
Brit Paratroopers are running patrols into Kabul to rescue their cits, and the 82nd Airborne Commander on the ground is refusing to go, read the article and realize how sold out the AmCits in Kabul are by their cowardly, disloyal Bidet administration:
[LA Times] At a dusty traffic circle just outside the Kabul airport, amped-up Taliban fighters had corralled hundreds of unarmed Afghans. There, under a punishing afternoon sun, another tragic and tumultuous scene from the U.S. withdrawal played out on Tuesday.
The young men with the Taliban numbered only in the dozens, but the crowds cowered before them. The men fired automatic weapons indiscriminately into the air, and sometimes aimed them at the assembled men, women and children.
The beatings seemed to be administered almost at random, but with chilling deliberateness. Sticks, lengths of rubber hose, knotted rope, rifle butts — the fighters wielded them all.
Some of those on the receiving end of the blows were trying to slip away through a hole in the fence to get inside the airport perimeter, but others were simply squatting on the ground, trying to shield themselves.
This photographer, trying to capture an image of a fighter pointing his gun at the crowd, was whipped in the leg.
Gunfire could be heard every few moments in the traffic circle, which was blocked off by Afghan army vehicles commandeered by the militants when the capital fell. One fighter, after letting loose a volley of shots, directed a smile at one of his comrades.
At least a dozen people were wounded. A woman and child were left covered in blood; a few men in the crowd pulled them across the street to safety, hustling them into a yellow Toyota Corolla taxi that then sped off. An elderly man in a bloodstained sports jacket carried a limp child, whose eyes were open to reveal only the whites.
About 5,000 diplomats, security staff, aid workers, and Afghans have been evacuated from Kabul in the last 24 hours and military flights will continue around the clock, a Western official said.
"Everyone wants out," said a member of an Afghan family after they arrived in Germany. "Every day is worse than the day before. We saved ourselves but we couldn’t rescue our families."
The United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... said it had begun moving up to 100 international staff temporarily to Kazakhstan, but stressed it is "committed to staying and delivering in support of the Afghan people in their hour of need". The U.N. has about 300 international staff and 3,000 local staff in Afghanistan.
Britannia’s ambassador to Afghanistan said his team had evacuated about 700 people on Tuesday while Germany’s foreign minister said it had evacuated 500 people in total.
The Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... have suggested they will impose their laws less severely than during their former rule, and a bigwig said on Wednesday that the group’s leaders would be less reclusive than in the past.
"Slowly, gradually, the world will see all our leaders," the senior Taliban official said.
Tens of people protested in eastern Jalalabad city of Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province for flying Afghanistan’s-black, red, green-colored- flag which led to violence between them and the Taliban ...Arabic for students... fighters.
Eyewitnesses said that the Taliban fighters launched indiscriminate fires at protesters during which two were killed and several more maimed.
Protesters are asking the Taliban to let the flag fly throughout the country and do not change it with the new one-colored white.
Local residents in Jalalabad city said that the Taliban have also beaten two local journalists as they wanted to cover the protest.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... tens of youngsters also gathered for the very cause in the neighboring province of Kunar bordering Pakistain.
Video clips from Asadabad city of Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... show that protesters have managed to fly the flag over a minaret in the scenic provincial capital.
In southeastern Afghanistan, Khost province ... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name... also witnessed a similar protest which turned violent mostly peaceful and the Taliban launched indiscriminate fires but no casualties were reported.
The protest and plea on social media for keeping the flag come as people around the country celebrate August 19-Independence day of Afghanistan- carrying and flying the flag on cars and rooftops every year on this day.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/19/2021 00:00 ||
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[11128 views]
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[TheDrive] As the chaos at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan's capital Kabul was beginning to unfold after the Taliban entered the city on Sunday, an entirely different kind of exodus was underway from the country's northern regions. Satellite imagery confirms that dozens of fixed-wing aircraft, such as A-29 Super Tucano light attack planes, and helicopters, including UH-60 Black Hawks, from the now-defunct Afghan armed forces, originally supplied by the United States, are sitting at Termez Airport in neighboring Uzbekistan.
An image, taken yesterday, Aug. 16, 2021, of Termez from Planet Labs shows the sudden appearance of at least 22 small fixed-wing planes and 26 helicopters. The resolution of the imagery means we can't say for sure that all of these aircraft came fled from Afghanistan. However, what we can see fits almost perfectly with an official statement from the government of Uzbekistan that 46 aircraft, 22 fixed-wing types and 24 helicopters, coming out of Afghanistan had been "forced" to land. I'll be looking to see a few Super Tucanos on eBay...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/19/2021 6:50 Comments ||
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#6
Hopefully their new home will be in the Panjshir Valley. It's the late 1990's all over again, with an even less competent but more compromised and vindictive Clinton (no, not Hillary).
The Turkish Air Force is carrying out bombing raids in Yezidi-populated Sinjar in Iraq for the second day in a row. There are numerous casualties. pic.twitter.com/HfVmcS1BMK
[EN.ALGHADEERTV.NET] A senior security source in Diyala reported today that the security forces and al-Hashd al-Shaabi are on alert in anticipation of attacks targeting gatherings on the tenth of Muharram.
The source told Alghadeer News that a senior ISIS security Official was arrested in the outskirts of Khalis district, who was planning to target Husseiniyahs.
An intelligence source told Alghadeer News that a special intelligence force arrested an ISIS terrorist known as Abu Obeida.
The source confirmed that the terrorist was planning to target Khalis district on the tenth of Muharram, through several terrorist operations," noting, "this terrorist is one of the most dangerous security elements of ISIS in Baghdad and Diyala."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/19/2021 00:00 ||
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[11135 views]
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[IsraelTimes] Israeli security guards arrest a Paleostinian teenager who the Defense Ministry says ran toward them with a knife at a checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel.
According to the ministry, the 15-year-old ran toward the guards from the West Bank side of the Gilboa Crossing. They called for him to halt and aimed their guns at him.
"The suspect stopped, lifted up his shirt [to show he was not wearing an boom belt] and threw a knife away," the ministry says.
The guards arrested the teenager, a resident of the Jenin refugee camp, and handed him over to the Shin Bet security service for questioning.
The teenager appeared to be the relative of one of four suspected snuffies killed in a shootout with Israeli security forces earlier this week.
The Defense Ministry later released a photograph of the kitchen knife that was in the suspect’s possession.
IDF allegedly destroyed Hezbollah post in last night's strike in Syria, @noamamir74 reports; video from site suggests it was packed with explosives, fire in area raged for long hours after attack, the report says. https://t.co/Hct5QdejcA
The target of last night's attack in Al-Quneitra region was the office of 90th Division's commander, Hussien Hamush (حسين حموش). https://t.co/3MUnLFy7hJ
The Syrian army's 90th Division works in full cooperation with Hezbollah, for which it supplies surveillance equipment and military posts. Hezbollah uses those military posts as their bases and command centers in the Golan File.
[IsraelTimes] In pamphlets, IDF warns Syrian troops to stop cooperating with Hezbollah and takes responsibility for a June attack on a Syrian base that it says was used by the terror groupA flier dropped on the Syrian side of the border on August 18, 2021.
The Israel Defense Forces reportedly dropped threatening pamphlets in southern Syria on Wednesday, warning Syrian soldiers to stop cooperating with Hezbollah, hours after reportedly conducting twin missile strikes on a Syrian military base and an outpost controlled by the Lebanese terror group.
The flyers, which were written in Arabic and addressed to "Syrian [Arab] Army soldiers," matched the style of similar leaflets that have been dropped in Syria in the past and included the silhouette of an eagle — the symbol of the IDF’s 210th "Bashan" Division, which is tasked with defending Israel’s frontier with Syria and the Golan Heights. The IDF refused to comment on the matter.
In the pamphlet, the Israeli military appeared to take responsibility for the shelling of a Syrian army base earlier this summer. The Israeli military has not publicly acknowledged conducting that strike or most others that it has carried out in Syria in recent years, under its general policy of ambiguity regarding its efforts against Hezbollah in the country.
"Despite our previous warnings about this and even after the attack on the al-Qahtaniah base on 17/06/21, Hezbollah — in a manipulative way — has turned you into a tool, into marionettes. It uses you as its eyes and it uses your bases without you even knowing," the flyer reads.
The flyer also directly names the Hezbollah official that the IDF believes is facilitating the relationship between the Iran-backed terror group and the Syrian military, Jawad Hasham, the son of Hajj Hasham, who leads Hezbollah’s efforts along the Syrian border.
"It is no secret that Jawad Hasham is currently in the Golan and in Daraa. Your filthy actions on behalf of Hezbollah are considered by the Syrian Army to be a top priority," the flyer reads.
The pamphlet accuses the Syrian military of allowing Hezbollah to operate within the bases and under the auspices of its 90th Brigade "in order to develop lookout capabilities and for other efforts."
"Be careful with your actions, you are being watched through a microscope. Hasham’s help has brought you destruction and his bad intentions are coming out. You are responsible for your actions, and Hezbollah is responsible for your suffering," it says.
According to a pro-opposition Syrian source in the Golan Heights, the office of the 90th Brigade commander, Brig. Gen. Hussein Hamoush, near the city of Khader, was one of the two targets of a missile strike on Tuesday night, which Syria said Israel had carried out. The second target was said to be a Hezbollah outpost in the area.
The IDF has repeatedly accused Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad’s military of actively assisting Hezbollah and warned it against this, both through flyers dropped along the border and through overt, public appeals, in some cases naming the Syrian and Hezbollah officials involved, including officers from Syria’s 90th Brigade and 1st Division.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/19/2021 00:00 ||
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[11129 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
At least somebody's taking out the trash and not cooking the numbers. All chips in.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Arabic for 
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
