Ariana: The Taliban has given Afghanistan’s cricket team the go ahead to take part in the upcoming Test match against Australia. According to Australia’s News.com, the Afghan side is scheduled to play a Test match against Australia at Hobart’s Blundstone Arena starting Saturday, September 27. Click here to read more (external link).
Complicated Jihadist Dynamics Pose Challenge for the Taliban
Jamie Dettmer
VOA News
September 1, 2021
Buoyed by the West’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Taliban commanders say they are confident they can defeat the Islamic State terror affiliate, which claimed responsibility for last month’s suicide bombing at Kabul airport, killing more than a dozen U.S. military personnel and at least 170 Afghans.
Pausing between a string of firefights between the Taliban and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province group last week in west Kabul, a Taliban commander boasted to Western reporters that Afghanistan’s new rulers will finish off their rivals much as they forced NATO to withdraw from the country.
Some analysts predict the fight between the Taliban and IS-Khorasan – also known as ISIS-K – will pitch a pair of ruthless and battle-hardened groups of militants in a jihadi fratricide which will likely see no mercy given.
Even before U.S. forces withdrew this week, the Taliban executed some senior IS-Khorasan commanders imprisoned by the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani, including shooting dead its former top leader Mawlawi Ziya ul-Haq.
The executions were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Khorasan was a sixth-century Islamic region spanning parts of modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as parts of Central Asia.
Complicating factor
IS-Khorasan has the potential to cause Afghanistan’s new rulers plenty to worry about, complicating their efforts to consolidate power and establish a national government, in the view of Western military officials and independent counter-terrorism analysts. “The Taliban faces its own threat from ISIS-K,” argues Anthony Cordesman in a commentary Tuesday for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington research institution.
His CSIS colleague Seth Jones, a former adviser to the commanding general of U.S. Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan, says IS-Khorasan now has “a lot of opportunity for resurgence.” He notes the affiliate’s fortunes had been declining recently thanks to the U.S. and Afghan forces conducting “pretty persistent strikes” on the group. He estimates their numbers had fallen from around 6,000 to 2,000.
IS-Khorasan first appeared in Afghanistan in late 2014, comprising Pakistani militants who crossed into Afghanistan to escape a Pakistani army offensive. The group has carried out dozens of deadly attacks and suicide bombings over the past few years and been blamed for some of the worst recent atrocities, involving girls’ schools, hospitals and a maternity ward, where their fighters reportedly shot dead pregnant women and slaughtered nurses.
The Kabul airport blast last week underlined its capacity for violence.
The group’s founder, Abdul Rauf Aliza, was a provincial-level Taliban commander before falling out with the Taliban leadership in 2014. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike in February 2015. IS-Khorasan’s current leader, Shahab al-Muhajir, is also a former mid-level Taliban commander, who also worked for al-Qaida and is suspected by some Western security officials of still enjoying close ties with the leaders of the Haqqani network, a major Taliban faction currently in charge of security in the Afghan capital.
Those suspected ties prompted Michael Pregent, a former U.S. intelligence officer and now an analyst at the Hudson Institute, a U.S.-based research group, to suggest last week that elements of the Taliban likely colluded in the Kabul airport bombing. “If it was ISIS-K, they passed through Haqqani security, because they have command and control of Kabul, and they have an intelligence apparatus.” He added the bomber also managed to navigate “multiple Taliban checkpoints in order to hit Americans.”
Whether a full-fledged affiliate of ISIS or not, Shahab al-Muhajir is seen as being highly ambitious and the core leadership seems eager now to expand to Afghanistan. Jihadist chat rooms — pro-Islamic State ones as well as al-Qaida-dominated forums — are full of discussions about how the focus should now switch from Syria to Afghanistan.
A U.N. report last year reported that al-Muhajir was seeking to swell IS-Khorasan’s ranks with disaffected Taliban fighters and other militants. He is likely to take advantage of any missteps by the Taliban and local disputes among Taliban commanders.
If Taliban leaders are serious about moderating their imposition of Sharia and to be less oppressive than when they ruled in the 1990s — as their top leaders have suggested publicly — then they run the risk of defections to IS-Khorasan, suspect some NGO workers.
The chief of party of a European NGO told VOA this week that she has noticed clear geographical differences across the country when it comes to how the Taliban is ruling.
“In the South, we have not yet received approval for male and females to work. They have told us our men can resume work, but not our females,” she said. She asked not to be named in this article and for her NGO to remain unidentified.
With the country facing catastrophic food shortages, mass unemployment, and collapsing health and education systems, according to U.N. officials, IS-Khorasan will have plenty of disaffection to exploit.
Some Western security officials also say Afghanistan, with its mixture of ethnic minorities, around 14 in all, is a natural location for Islamic State, which has been adept in Syria and Iraq at exploiting sectarian divides. Many of IS-Khorasan attacks have targeted Afghanistan’s Shi’ite Hazara minority, they note.
Female Journalists Are Disappearing From Afghanistan’s Media Landscape, Group Warns
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 1, 2021
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling on the Taliban leadership to provide immediate guarantees for the freedom and safety of female journalists in Afghanistan, where it said hundreds of them have been forced to stay home since the hard-line Islamist group took control of the country more than two weeks ago.
Amid “incidents involving Afghan women journalists since the Taliban takeover on 15 August and orders to respect Islamic laws,” an RSF investigation has established that fewer than 100 women journalists are still formally working at privately owned radio and television stations in the capital, Kabul, compared to 700 last year, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog said in a statement on August 31.
Meanwhile, “most women journalists have been forced to stop working in the provinces, where almost all privately owned media outlets ceased operating as the Taliban forces advanced,” the group said.
Outside the capital, RSF said a handful of women journalists “are still more or less managing to work from home,” while in 2020 they were more than 1,700 of them working for media outlets in the three provinces of Kabul, Herat, and Balkh.
RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said women journalists “must be able to resume working without being harassed as soon as possible, because it is their most basic right, because it is essential for their livelihood, and also because their absence from the media landscape would have the effect of silencing all Afghan women.”
Since the Western-backed government and Afghan Army collapsed under a lightning Taliban offensive, the Taliban has sought to portray a more moderate image than when it ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.
However, there is growing evidence that the reality on the ground is different to the rhetoric coming from Taliban leaders and spokesmen, with many reports saying summary executions and house-to-house searches for those who worked with international groups or the previous government are occurring across the country.
According to RSF, female reporters with privately owned television channels such as TOLOnews, Ariana News, Kabul News, Shamshad TV, and Khurshid TV started being harassed soon after the Taliban took control of Kabul.
Nahid Bashardost of the independent news agency Pajhwok was beaten by Taliban militants while doing a report near Kabul airport on August 25.
Other female journalists said that Taliban guards stationed outside their media outlets had prevented them from going out to cover stories.
RSF cited a woman journalist working for a radio station in the southeastern province of Ghazni as saying that members of the Islamist group visited the station and warned: “You are a privately owned radio station. You can continue, but without any woman’s voice and without music.”
In Kabul, a member of the Taliban replaced a female anchor at state-owned Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) while another female anchor was denied entry to the building.
“RTA employed 140 women journalists until mid-August. Now, none of them dares to go back to work at the state TV channels, which are now under Taliban control,” RSF said.
Meanwhile, executives and editors at privately owned media outlets that have not already decided to stop operating said that, under pressure, they have advised their women journalists to stay at home.
Afghanistan was ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index published in April.
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Afghan Central Banker Tells Reuters Limited Access To Reserves Should Be Allowed
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 1, 2021
A senior board member of Afghanistan’s central bank has told Reuters that the U.S. Treasury and the International Monetary Fund should take steps to provide the Taliban-led government limited access to the country’s reserves as the country lurches toward a possible economic disaster.
Shah Mehrabi, an economics professor at Montgomery College in Maryland and a member of the bank’s board since 2002, told Reuters in a telephone interview on September 1 that Afghanistan faces an “inevitable economic and humanitarian crisis” if its international reserves estimated at almost $10 billion remain frozen by President Joe Biden’s administration.
“If the international community wants to prevent an economic collapse, one way would be to allow Afghanistan to gain limited and monitored access to its reserves,” he said, noting the opinion came as a central bank board member and was not a statement from the Taliban militants who now rule almost all of the country.
Most of the reserves are held in the United States and not at the Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) in Kabul.
The Taliban took over Afghanistan with astonishing speed, culminating with the fall of Kabul on August 14. The United States and its allies evacuated more than 123,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans out of the country before an August 31 deadline for foreign troops to withdraw from the country, leaving the Taliban to return to power two decades after being removed by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
Mehrabi said the United States should allow the new Afghan government to access a limited amount of the money each month. The disbursements, maybe in the range of of $100 million to $125 million at the beginning, would be monitored by an independent auditor, he added.
“Having no access will choke off the Afghan economy, and directly hurt the Afghan people, with families pushed further into poverty,” Mehrabi said.
On August 31, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned of a looming “humanitarian catastrophe” in Afghanistan as he urged countries to provide emergency funding for the war-torn nation.
Based on reporting by Reuters
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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Turkish Officials Say Deportation Centers Packed With Afghan Refugees
Heather Murdock
VOA News
August 31, 2021
VAN, TURKEY / TURKISH BORDER WITH IRAN – Under a small bridge more than 100 kilometers from the Turkish border with Iran, a small group of boys and young men waits quietly for a smuggler.
They are unwashed, exhausted and hungry. Most of them are under 18, and they are all from Afghanistan. When the Taliban began taking over their towns and villages, they fled their homes with almost nothing. Currently, after more than two months of travel, they have even less.
“I brought shampoo, soap, money, my phone and a watch,” says Saboon Afghan, 24, the oldest in the group and its de facto leader. “I used up some and the rest was stolen. Now, I just have these clothes and an empty bag.”
The young men and boys are hiding because they fear they will be arrested and sent back across the border to Iran if they are caught. A few say this trip is their second attempt and only the youngest among them — at 12 years old — is likely to be seen as a true refugee — at least this is what they expect.
At a deportation center in Van the day before, officials conducted a tour of the facility for journalists, demonstrating efforts to provide humane treatment, even as they worked to reduce the number of refugees in Turkey.
They are not currently deporting refugees to Afghanistan for humanitarian and logistical reasons, says Cuma Omurcu, the general director of the refugee office for Van Province. He also states unequivocally they are not deporting people to Iran.
But under the bridge, the young men and boys are doubtful, saying if they are caught, they expect to be arrested and held in a deportation center, or sent back to Iran, regardless of any official policy.
“We were walking openly on the streets for an hour when the police arrested us last time,” says Zaki Wassim, 17, from Kabul, explaining what happened when he tried to enter Turkey from Iran about a month ago. “The next evening, they took us in a bus to the border and shouted, ‘Don’t come back to Turkey.'”
Influx angers some Turks
Earlier this month, the Taliban swept into Kabul after taking over vast swaths of Afghanistan in a matter of days. Since then, mass evacuations have left the Kabul airport in chaos, and Islamic State suicide bombers have killed at least 170 people and 13 U.S. service members.
The country is on edge, waiting to find out what will happen now that the United States has met its self-declared August 31 deadline to pull out of Afghanistan completely.
Turkish officials also are waiting to see what happens next, saying it may be weeks or months before they can resume deportations. Turkey currently has 25 deportation centers, all filled to capacity with mostly Afghan refugees, and it plans to build eight more.
“We cannot send them back because of human rights issues,” says Omurcu. “But if things go well, we will resume normal deportations.”
Many Turkish people are angered by the influx of Afghan refugees, saying their country is being damaged economically and socially by the crisis. Turkey already hosts more than 4 million refugees and asylum-seekers, more than any other country in the world, including 3.6 million Syrian refugees.
During the tour, officials express sympathy for the detainees, showing playrooms for children, Turkish language classes, and a line of young men picking up what appears to be a healthy meal. They also express sympathy for the angered Turkish nationals, who want refugees out of their country.
“Illegal entries are out of control in Turkey,” Omurcu continues. “It is too much.”
Asylum claims
The process for becoming a legal refugee in Turkey involves applying for asylum via government officials. In most countries, the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, processes the claims, but Turkey relieved the agency of that responsibility in 2018.
Under the bridge, the boys do not seem to know much about the process, saying first they were driven from their homes by crushing poverty. Later, they explain the poverty was a result of war and violence. Both the United Nations and Turkey are clear: fleeing violence and danger can make you eligible for refugee status. Fleeing poverty does not, even if the two are intertwined.
At the deportation center, some refugees point out that no one plans to become a refugee, so it is reasonable that some people do not know how to organize their tragic stories in order to fit into a legal definition.
Soraya, 19, was in her third semester at a university when she ran from her home in western Afghanistan. She was studying physics and chemistry, hoping one day to become a doctor.
When the Taliban took over her town, she and her sister fled with her nieces and nephews. Besides the violence of the war, they feared they would be in danger, just for being educated women.
And while she hopes Turkey will help her find a safe place to live, outside of the detention camp, she doesn’t see it as Turkey’s responsibility.
“This is my request for the whole world,” she says. “Please pave the way for us. We escaped the battles ourselves. Now we need help.”
Mohammad Mahdi Sultani contributed to this report.
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Biden Says Era-Ending Afghan Withdrawal ‘Best For America,’ But U.S. ‘Far From Done’
Joe Biden
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 31, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden said in a televised speech on August 31 summing up recent actions in Afghanistan that his choice was “leaving or escalating” that country and he takes “responsibility” for his decision.
The withdrawal, Biden said, is also “about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.”
“We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan,” the U.S. president said a day after the withdrawal was announced as complete. “This is the right decision. A wise decision. And the best decision for America.”
The United States and its allies evacuated more than 123,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans out of Kabul after August 14, the day before the Taliban seized Kabul two decades after being removed from power by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The capture of Kabul by the militants followed four months of rapid victories that left the hard-line ultraconservative militant group in control of most of the country after the withdrawal of U.S.-led international troops officially began on May 1.
“I was not going to extend this forever war,” Biden said from the White House State Dining Room. “And I was not going to extend a forever exit.”
He said continued participation in Afghan conflict was not in the “vital national interest” of the United States.
“I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan,” he said.
Biden said his priority is to ensure that Afghanistan can never be used to launch another attack on the United States, a reference to the 9/11 attacks overseen by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan two decades ago.
The last Air Force airlift took off from Kabul airport shortly before midnight on August 30, the eve of Biden’s self-imposed deadline for the U.S. troop pullout.
Just hours after the last U.S. military plane took off, reports of fighting emerged on August 31 from the one part of Afghanistan not under Taliban control: the Panjshir Province 100 kilometers northeast of the capital, long a pocket of resistance to the militants.
But Biden also signaled in the speech that “we are far from done.”
Speaking with reports of at least 100 more Americans still in Afghanistan despite the declaration that the U.S. withdrawal is complete, Biden said, “For those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.”
He said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was leading diplomatic efforts to guarantee safe passage for any U.S. or foreign national, or Afghan partner, who wanted to leave since the August 15 takeover by the Taliban.
“The Taliban has made public commitments, broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan, on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans,” Biden said. “We don’t take them by their word alone, but by their actions, and we have leverage to make sure those commitments are met.”
Biden also had a message for the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) militants who claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing that killed at least 180 people, including 13 U.S. soldiers, on August 26.
“We are not done with you,” Biden said.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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Taliban commit ‘house-to-house executions’ in Kabul after US exit as chilling audio demonstrates Afghans’ fear
From senior US source: house-to-house executions in Kabul following US mil departure. There are no words for what this administration has done to all of us – Afghan and American. pic.twitter.com/KzbLALKxGy
— Lara Logan (@laralogan) August 30, 2021
Fox News: President Biden did not deny a Politico report, confirmed by Fox News, that U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies in an effort to grant them entry to the airport which resulted in outrage from military officials behind the scenes. The president said “there may have been” such a list. “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” one defense official told Politico. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – August 31, 2021
Taliban Takes Control Of Kabul Airport, Celebrates ‘Full Independence’ After U.S. Pullout
Taliban fighters (file photo)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 31, 2021
The Taliban, now in full control of Kabul’s airport with the final departure of foreign forces, has clashed with resistance fighters in the northeast as the rest of the world watches to see if the militants live up to their promises of a more tolerant and open brand of rule compared with their first stint in power.
The last U.S. military aircraft left the airport’s runway overnight, marking the end of a 20-year presence in Afghanistan and the United States’ longest war, following a chaotic final evacuation that left behind thousands of Afghans looking to escape Taliban rule.
The Taliban said Afghanistan had “gained full independence” with the U.S. withdrawal, while also warning that the Taliban’s victory was a “lesson for other invaders.”
Just hours after the last U.S. military plane took off, reports of fighting emerged on August 31 from the one part of Afghanistan not under Taliban control: Panjshir Province 100 kilometers northeast of the capital, long a pocket of resistance to the militants.
At least seven people were killed in the fighting, according to local media reports and sources quoted by international news agencies.
The resistance, led by Ahmad Masud, the son of a revered Afghan resistance fighter, has said it would prefer negotiations with the Taliban, though it also has gathered thousands of armed men “ready to fight.”
The violence is a stark reminder of the precarious situation in the country.
Celebratory gunfire could be heard as the militants cheered what a spokesman called the regaining of “full independence.
Zabihullah Mujahid also said that the hard-line Islamist group wished to have “good relations with the U.S. and the world.”
The group has urged foreign diplomatic missions to stay in the country, but most countries have closed their embassies.
The militants have said they will allow normal travel after assuming control of Kabul airport.
While the United States suspended its diplomatic presence in Kabul, transferring operations to the Qatari capital, Doha, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington would continue its “relentless efforts” to help Americans — and Afghans with U.S. passports — to leave Afghanistan if they want to.
He said the Taliban needed to earn its legitimacy and would be judged on the extent to which it fulfilled its commitments to not carry out violent reprisals in Afghanistan, respect human and women’s rights, and not allow the country to become a base for international terrorism.
U.S. President Joe Biden will address the nation on August 31 in Washington after earlier noting his decision to stick to an August 31 deadline for withdrawal was the “unanimous recommendation” of military commanders.
Since the Western-backed government and Afghan army collapsed under a lightning Taliban offensive, thousands of Afghans have fled their homes fearing a repeat of the Taliban’s brutal rule between 1996 and 2001.
The Taliban has said it was in talks with “all factions” to reach an agreement on a future government, and repeatedly promised a more tolerant and open brand of rule compared with their first stint in power.
However, many reports have said summary executions and house to house searches for those who worked with international groups or the previous government are occurring across the country.
Speaking under the condition of anonymity, a member of Afghanistan’s tiny Sikh minority in Kabul told RFE/RL that Sikhs and Hindus “haven’t left their homes” since the Taliban seized power.
“Currently, we feel very uncertain and do not know what will happen after this. We want the international community and the U.S. to not leave us alone.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the Taliban was discussing the management of Kabul’s international airport with Qatar and Turkey.
He insisted that the Islamist group secure the facility quickly so that people who want to leave Afghanistan can do so using commercial flights.
During a visit to Islamabad, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that Berlin was closely watching whether the Taliban delivers on its pledges to form an inclusive government and to allow people to leave the country if they choose.
Maas said Germany was coordinating with Pakistan for the evacuation of its citizens from Afghanistan and also “preparing in close cooperation with others to organize charter flights as soon as Kabul airport is operable again.”
Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said he expected that a new “consensus government will be formed in the coming days.”
Qureshi also urged the international community to act to prevent an ‘economic collapse” in Afghanistan, which he said would create more instability and a further exodus of Afghans.
Amid anxiety about their future and what the new government will look like, Afghans woke up with no international troop presence in their country for the first time in two decades.
“The city is quiet,” Lotfullah, a central Kabul resident, told the dpa news agency.
Most shops in the Shahr-e Nau district were open, but only have a few customers, he said.
In the western district of the Dasht-e Barchi, another resident said private and public schools had reopened for the first time since the Taliban takeover.
The BBC reported that huge queues have been forming outside shuttered banks, ATMs, and money transfer services in Afghanistan.
With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, the BBC, and Reuters
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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US Says Its Military Presence in Afghanistan is Over
Jeff Seldin
VOA News
August 30, 2021
The United States’ two-decadeslong presence in Afghanistan is over.
The last planes left the Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. EST, one minute before midnight in Kabul, said Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command.
A senior Taliban official told VOA, “All foreign occupation forces withdrew from the country moments ago.”
Word of the final U.S. flights came even as the White House and the Pentagon promised they would continue to help evacuate Americans and vulnerable Afghans from Kabul up until “the very end,” describing the evacuation as the largest airlift in U.S. military history.
“We continue to have the capability to evacuate and fly out those until the very end,” Army Major General William “Hank” Taylor, deputy director for regional operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.
The White House and the Pentagon said that as of early Monday, a total of 116,700 people have been evacuated following the Taliban’s takeover earlier in August of Afghanistan, including 1,200 or so people flown out on 26 U.S. military flights and two coalition flights from Sunday into Monday.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday that some 6,000 Americans have left Afghanistan during that time but “there are still a small number” who had yet to make it out.
“We are continuing to work to evacuate American citizens,” Psaki added. “Our commitment is enduring, and our commitment does not waiver, even as we bring our men and women from the military home.”
Psaki also denied reports that the U.S. evacuation of Afghan partners, specifically Special Immigrant Visa applicants, stopped following last Thursday’s suicide bombing, claimed by Islamic State’s Khorasan province, which killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
“The president has made clear to his commanders that they should stop at nothing to make sure that ISIS pays for the death of those American service members at the Kabul airport,” Psaki said, using another acronym for the group. “They have the authorities necessary.”
Still, both the White House and the Pentagon described the conditions on the ground during the final hours of the U.S. military-led evacuation as both fluid and dangerous, highlighted by an overnight rocket attack on the Kabul airport, also claimed by IS-Khorasan.
Defense officials said the attackers fired as many as five rockets at the airport. Three of them missed the airfield entirely, while a fourth landed at the airport without causing any significant damage.
A fifth rocket was taken out by U.S. defense systems at the airport, officials said.
“The threat stream is still real, it’s still active and in many cases, it’s still specific,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters, adding, “We have to try to be as quick and as nimble as they are.”
In the meantime, the U.S. is also coming under increased criticism for some of its security efforts, including a drone strike Sunday in Kabul.
U.S. military officials say the strike killed IS-Khorasan operatives who were loading explosives into a vehicle with the intent of carrying out an attack on the airport, but media reports, including one by The New York Times, said the strike or secondary explosions killed as many as nine civilians, among them children.
Kirby on Monday stood by the initial assessment of an imminent threat but added the military is “not in a position to dispute” accounts that bystanders, including children, were killed.
“No military on the face of the Earth works harder to avoid civilian casualties than the United States military, and nobody wants to see innocent life taken,” he said. “We take it very, very seriously.”
Airlift winds down
As the U.S. deadline neared, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Monday the Afghan people need governments, humanitarians and ordinary people “to stay with them and stay the course.”
“As people across the world welcome Afghans into their communities and homes, we cannot forget those who have been left behind,” Grandi said in a statement. “We must meet the critical humanitarian needs in Afghanistan and in countries around the region, and our response must be robust and urgent. Standing by the people of Afghanistan means standing by all of them, whether they have sought safety abroad or are picking up the pieces of their lives at home.”
VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara and VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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