Kabul [Afghanistan] August 31,2021:: Taliban on Tuesday fired their guns in the air in celebration as the United States completed the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, after 20 years of military presence.
“Parts of Kabul erupted in celebratory gunfire after the last US C-17 aircraft lifted off from Hamid Karzai International Airport right before midnight shortly after the last aircraft departed,” CNN reported.
General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of the US Central Command, made the withdrawal announcement at a Pentagon news briefing.
“I announce the completion of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens and Afghans… The last C-17 lifted off from Hamid Karzai Airport on August 30 this afternoon at 3:29 pm (local time), he said.
Following US troops withdrawal, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has also said the last American soldier left Kabul airport at 9 pm Afghan time.
“The last American soldier left Kabul airport at 9 pm Afghan time and our country gained full independence, Alhamdulillah Walmana,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden will address the American people on US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan on Tuesday.
“Tomorrow afternoon, I will address the American people on my decision not to extend our presence in Afghanistan beyond August 31,” Biden said.
Washington/Kabul, Aug 30,2021: With hours away from the August 31 deadline, nearly 100 countries, in a joint statement said they have been given commitment by the Taliban that all nationals from their countries and Afghan citizens with travel documents seeking to leave Kabul will be allowed safe passage.
The countries said they have received assurances from the Taliban that all foreign nationals and Afghan citizens with travel authorization will be allowed to proceed in a safe and orderly manner to the points of departure and travel outside the country.
Titled ‘Joint Statement on Afghanistan Evacuation Travel Assurances’, issued by the US State Department on Sunday, it said that “we have the clear expectation of and commitment from the Taliban that they can travel to our respective countries. We note the public statements of the Taliban confirming this understanding.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a tweet, “Today nearly 100 countries issued a joint statement on the assurances by the Taliban that all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries will be allowed to safely travel outside Afghanistan.
“We will hold the Taliban to that commitment.”
The joint statement issued on Sunday reads, “We are all committed to ensuring that our citizens, nationals and residents, employees, Afghans who have worked with us and those who are at risk can continue to travel freely to destinations outside Afghanistan.
“We have received assurances from the Taliban that all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries will be allowed to proceed in a safe and orderly manner to points of departure and travel outside the country.
“We will continue issuing travel documentation to designated Afghans, and we have the clear expectation of and commitment from the Taliban that they can travel to our respective countries. We note the public statements of the Taliban confirming this understanding.”
The US will complete the withdrawal of its forces and personnel on August 31, Tuesday, but it has said that if some American citizens remain then it will expect the Taliban to allow them safe passage.
On Sunday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that August 31 is “not a cliff” and that the US believes it has “substantial leverage” with the Taliban to hold it to its commitments to allow safe passage to American citizens still left behind.
Washington, Aug 30,2021: The United States has evacuated all local Afghan staffers at its embassy in Kabul, as well as their families, ABC News reports citing an internal report.
A total of 2,800 Afghans have departed the airport in the capital city as of 00:30 GMT on Sunday and there were no evacuees left in the Kabul airport awaiting processing, the internal report said.
US diplomatic staff are still in the process of departing, according to the report, which also said that the Fort Lee base in Virginia is near full capacity as it has already received a large number of Afghan evacuees.
US President Joe Biden plans to evacuate all diplomatic staff, including the US ambassador, from Afghanistan by Tuesday, August 31, according to US media reports. The Biden administration has not made any final decisions about what a future US presence in Afghanistan might look like, or whether Washington will recognize a Taliban government.
Pyongyang, Aug 30,2021: According to the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) North Korea has secretly restarted its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, a report by the UN atomic agency said here on Sunday.
The agency said that the reactor is believed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, the BBC reported here on Monday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was expelled by Pyongyang in 2009 and relies on satellite imagery to carry out its assessments.
Its latest report said there were indications of activity “consistent with the operation of the reactor” since early July.
Aug 28 ,2021: Western forces running the Afghan airlift braced on Saturday for more attacks after the United States launched a drone strike, apparently killing an Islamic State “planner”, two days after the group claimed a deadly bombing outside Kabul airport.
Among the 92 killed in Thursday’s suicide blast, claimed by Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate, were 13 U.S. service members, the most lethal incident for U.S. troops in Afghanistan in a decade.
“Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties,” the U.S. military said in a statement, referring to the overnight drone strike.
U.S. Central Command said the strike took place in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul and bordering Pakistan. It did not say whether the target was connected with the airport attack.
Residents of Jalalabad city, capital of Nangarhar, said they heard several explosions from an air strike around midnight on Friday though it was not clear if the blasts were caused by a U.S. drone.
The White House said the next few days were likely to be the most dangerous of the U.S. evacuation operation that the Pentagon said has taken about 111,000 people out of Afghanistan in the past two weeks
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the United States believed there were still “specific, credible” threats against the airport after the bombing at one of its gates.
“We certainly are prepared and would expect future attempts,” Kirby told reporters in Washington. “We’re monitoring these threats, very, very specifically, virtually in real time.”
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned Americans to avoid Kabul’s airport because of security threats and those at its gates should leave immediately.
U.S. and allied forces have been racing to complete evacuations of their citizens and vulnerable Afghans and to withdraw from Afghanistan by the Tuesday deadline set by President Joe Biden after two decades of American military presence there.
Most of the more than 20 allied countries involved in airlifting Afghans and their citizens out of Kabul said they had completed evacuations by Friday.
Britain will end its operation on Saturday, its armed forces chief said, while acknowledging that it, like other countries, had not been able to get everyone out.
Throngs of people have gathered outside the airport to try to get onto evacuation flights since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, although on Friday Taliban guards stopped people from approaching.
U.S. service members assist at an Evacuation Control Check Point (ECC) during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, August 26, 2021. U.S. Marine Corps/Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/Handout via REUTERS
Biden said earlier he had ordered the Pentagon to plan how to strike ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate that claimed responsibility for Thursday’s bombing.
Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate, known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) after an old name for the region, appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2014 and later made inroads into other areas, particularly the north.
The group is an enemy of the Islamist Taliban as well as the West. The Pentagon said Thursday’s attack was carried out by one suicide bomber at an airport gate, not two as it had earlier stated.
Kabul, Aug 27 ,2021: The death from a series of terrorist attacks in the Afghan capital of Kabul has reached 103 people, media reported on Friday.
The explosions left at least 90 Afghan civilians dead, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a senior Afghan health official. The Pentagon has earlier confirmed the death of 13 servicemen.
On Thursday, at least four blasts targeted Kabul airport and its outskirts. The Islamic State-Khorasan terrorist group reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Aug 26,2021:Western nations rushed to evacuate people from Afghanistan on Wednesday but acknowledged that many Afghans who helped during two decades of war would be left behind to face an uncertain fate under the Taliban when foreign troops leave next week.
The effort was taking place against a chaotic backdrop in the capital, Kabul, and its airport, where a massive airlift of foreign nationals and their families as well as some Afghans is under way and due to last until Tuesday.
Pressure to complete the evacuations has intensified amid concerns about the security situation outside the airport, where the Taliban are in control.
In an alert issued on Wednesday evening, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul advised U.S. citizens to avoid travelling to the airport. It said those already at a number of the airport’s gates should leave immediately. It did not give a reason why the alert was issued.
U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered all troops out of the country by the end of the month, spurning pleas from European allies for more time to get people who helped NATO countries during the conflict to safety.
The Taliban have said foreign troops must be out by the end of the month. They have encouraged Afghans to stay, while saying those with permission to leave will still be allowed to do so once commercial flights resume after the foreign troops go.
Washington, Aug 25,2021: The US Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s bid to end the Trump administration’s so-called Remain in Mexico program, which required asylum-seeking migrants to wait in Mexico while their court proceedings process, a court order revealed.
“The application for a stay presented to Justice lSamuel] Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the court order said on Tuesday. “The applicants have failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious.”
As a result, the Supreme Court refuses to block a lower-court order ruling that requires the Biden administration to reinstate the policy formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the ruling will end Biden’s skirting of immigration laws and will reduce the record number of migrants crossing the US southern border illegally.
Meanwhile, Lindsay Toczylowski, a social justice lawyer who advocates for asylum-seeking migrants and opposes MPP, said the ruling reviving the policy is an actual nightmare that has become real life.
Illegal crossings on the US southern border have hit a 20-year high under the Biden administration with another record-setting month in July, which saw about 212,000 migrant encounters, according to US Customers and Border Patrol. The total number of apprehensions in the region since October – the beginning of the US government’s fiscal year – has now surpassed 1.3 million.