The evacuation of thousands of Americans and their Afghan allies from Kabul would have been 'hard and painful no matter when it started or when we began', Joe Biden said on Sunday, amid fierce criticism of his administration’s handling of the US withdrawal.
Answering questions, he said it was possible that his deadline for the completion of the evacuation, 31 August, would be extended
Continue reading...President defends US exit but makes changes to airlift effort at Kabul airport after criticism over deaths and chaotic scenes
The evacuation of thousands of Americans and their Afghan allies from Kabul would have been “hard and painful no matter when it started or when we began”, Joe Biden insisted on Sunday, amid fierce criticism of his administration’s handling of the US withdrawal.
Related: Pentagon orders commercial airlines to help in Afghanistan evacuations
Continue reading...Footage shows desperate crowds passing children to US soldiers in the hope of getting them to safety at Kabul international airport. Taliban forces have set up checkpoints outside the airport, raising fears that even people with the correct documents needed to leave Afghanistan may not get through to their evacuation flights
Joe Biden says US troops may remain in Afghanistan past 31 August as it continues to evacuate US citizens. Biden told ABC News: "If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out." The comments came after Biden denied the withdrawal of troops could have been handled better. Large crowds continue to arrive at Kabul's airport, creating a logistical hurdle as countries try to evacuate citizens. The US says it is unable to escort citizens to the airport but can continue to secure airstrip, enabling flights to take off
Continue reading...Desperate crowds gather at the airport as people try to escape after the Afghan capital fell to the Taliban on Sunday
Continue reading...Thousands of western nationals and vulnerable Afghans to be airlifted out of Kabul as Taliban launch major assault on northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif
US troops have begun arriving in Afghanistan to help evacuate thousands of people, including embassy staff, and Afghans and their families who worked for them as a sweeping Taliban offensive draws ever nearer to Kabul.
Diplomats and nationals from a host of western countries are scrambling to leave the capital, with insurgent fighters now camped just 50km (30 miles) away after a campaign that has seen provincial capitals swiftly fall.
Continue reading...Regime looking to shift focus from domestic problems with rhetoric around US-South Korea military drills, say analysts
North Korea’s threat to boost its military capacity to counter hostility from Washington before joint US-South Korea military drills is intended to divert attention from its economic crisis but could lead to a resumption of missile tests, according to analysts.
While there is nothing unusual about North Korean opposition to the summer exercises involving American and South Korean forces, its warning this week that Seoul and Washington faced “greater security threats” comes from a position of weakness not seen since Kim Jong-un came to power a decade ago.
Continue reading...Analysis: White House accused of unfairly pointing finger at Afghan military after decades of mismanaging war effort
As one provincial capital after another has fallen to the Taliban, the message from Washington to the Afghans facing the onslaught has been that their survival is in their own hands.
“They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” Joe Biden said. Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, added: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.”
Continue reading...Insurgents capture city 95 miles south of Kabul, the 10th provincial capital to fall in less than a week
The Taliban have captured the strategic city of Ghazni, 95 miles (150km) south of Kabul, as they continued to tighten their grip on the Afghan capital and the country’s president replaced his army chief.
The insurgent group had control of the entire city on Thursday morning and had broken into a prison and released about 400 inmates, a senior local official confirmed to the Guardian.
Continue reading...Evacuation flights start before visas are issued after insurgents make sweeping gains in provinces
America has launched emergency airlifts for Afghans who worked with its armed forces and diplomats, evacuating hundreds who are still waiting for their visas to the United States on military flights.
Only people in the final stages of a long, slow and bureaucratic visa process are eligible for the airlift, but bringing applicants to the continental US in large numbers is still unprecedented in recent years, officials working on the programme say.
Continue reading...Joe Biden and the Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, have sealed an agreement formally ending the US combat mission in Iraq by the end of 2021, more than 18 years after troops were sent to the country.
Coupled with Biden’s withdrawal of the last American forces in Afghanistan by the end of August, the Democratic president is completing US combat missions in the two wars that George W Bush began under his watch.
Continue reading...Defense department promises improvements in quality of life and mental health help on army bases
The defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has expressed concern about the alarming spike in suicides among US forces.
In 2020, 385 active-duty soldiers died by suicide, marking a steep increase from the 326 cases reported by the Pentagon in 2018.
Continue reading...Gen Mark Milley drew comparison to Nazi Germany as Trump tried to overturn election defeat, new book I Alone Can Fix This says
Shortly before the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, told aides the US was facing a “Reichstag moment” because Donald Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer”, according to an eagerly awaited book about Trump’s last year in office.
Related: Trump told chief of staff Hitler ‘did a lot of good things’, book says
Continue reading...• Elections minister calls for US help amid political instability
• Previous foreign interventions have proved controversial
Haiti’s government has requested that the United States send troops to protect key infrastructure following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse this week, the elections minister, Mathias Pierre, said on Friday.
Related: Why were Colombian guns for hire allegedly key to Haiti assassination plot?
Continue reading...Joe Biden has said the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war will conclude on 31 August and added there will be no ‘mission accomplished’ moment to celebrate. ‘We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,’ the US president said. ’It is the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.’
His remarks come as the Taliban makes advances in the country, which some senior Afghan officials have blamed on the abrupt departure of US troops
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Michael Avenatti, the former lawyer to Stormy Daniels who repeatedly clashed with Donald Trump during his presidency, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for trying to extort Nike.
Reuters reports:
U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan said Avenatti, 50, ‘had become drunk on the power of his platform’ in betraying his client, a youth basketball coach, in order to obtain riches for himself.
The sentencing caps a precipitous downfall for a once-obscure lawyer who in 2018 became a cable news fixture, disparaging then-President Trump and even flirting with a White House run himself.
Joe Biden rejected comparisons between the end of the Vietnam War and the conclusion of the war in Afghanistan, insisting the two events are nothing alike.
However, some American veterans have said they feel the US military is leaving a job undone in Afghanistan, just as it did in Vietnam. Some also fear that Kabul will soon fall to the Taliban, as Saigon fell after US troops departed Vietnam.
Continue reading...Military officials say troops turned off power and slipped away without notifying new commander
US forces plunged their main operating base in Afghanistan into darkness and abandoned it to looters when they slipped away in the middle of the night after two decades at the site without notifying their Afghan allies.
The furtive departure from Bagram airbase, which is vital to the security of Kabul and holds about 5,000 mostly Taliban prisoners, infuriated the Afghans. Many saw it as emblematic of a withdrawal they say is being carried out entirely to fit an American political schedule, with no heed for the collapsing security situation on the ground.
Continue reading...After nearly two decades, the US military has left Bagram, now Afghan forces have invited the press inside the huge, eerily quiet facility
Continue reading...Pentagon says air strikes were in response to drone attacks against US personnel in Iraq
The US has carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed militia in Iraq and Syria, in response to drone attacks against US personnel and facilities in Iraq.
The strikes on Sunday targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq, the Pentagon said.
Continue reading...Top Pentagon leaders on Wednesday passionately defended the military's approach to addressing racism and said that it was important for personnel to study critical race theory, after Republican rep Matt Gaetz and others questioned them about it, saying it was lowering moral.
Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said the military need not apologize for fostering open-mindedness and that he wants to 'understand white rage'.
Critical race theory is a concept developed by academics and leading scholars of jurisprudence, with intellectual origins in the 1960s which were organized officially in the late 1980s. The theory states that racism is embedded both in US history and modern American law. It holds that legal institutions in the US are inherently racist.
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