As the evacuation of U.S. and Afghan citizens slogs on, reports of Al-Qaeda and ISIS seeking to retaliate complicates an already abysmal situation for 78-year-old President Joe Biden who finds himself a victim of his own procrastination. Biden announced April 17 that he would exit Afghanistan Sept. 1, pushing the exit date set by former President Donald Trump from May 1 to Sept. 1. Biden had four months to evacuate U.S. and Afghan citizens but chose to procrastinate, waiting until U.S. puppet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled to Doha, Qatar Aug. 16 with oodles of cash, marking an end to the U.S.-backed Afghan government. Once the Taliban circled Kabul and the Hamid Karzai airport, Biden finally noticed that it was time to evacuate U.S. citizens and others. Caught in the stampede to get out, U.S. citizens can’t get through Taliban checkpoints to the airport.
News that al-Qaeda and ISIS were lurking around Kabul adds a new complication to the evacuation currently underway. U.S. embassy personnel announced the new ISIS and al-Qaeda warning today, especially as the U.S. approaches the 20-year-anniversary of Sept. 11. Sept. 11 is celebrated in Islamic radical circles as the strike on the Great Satan, as Bin Laden used to call the United States. Al-Qaeda and ISIS are still seeking revenge for the May 2, 2011 death of Bin Lande and the, Oct. 27, 2019 death of al-Baghdadi. Former President Donald Trump was relentless in his pursuit of al-Baghdadi, eventually killing him in his hideout in Syria’s, Idlib province. No one knows the extent to which al-Qaeda and ISIS run wild in Afghanistan, Bin Laden’s former safe haven.
U.S. officials hope they can get the Taliban’s expected Supreme Leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to keep al-Qaeda and ISIS out.
Baradar, widely expected to succeed the late Mullah Mohammed Omar to lead the Taliban, has traveled from Qatar to Kabul to assume his leadership post. Baradar negotiated the end of U.S. occupation of Afghanistan Feb. 29, 2020 with Trump’s 70-yar-old Special Envoy Zalmay Kahilizad. Trump’s 56-year-old former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had no problems with the U.S. exit timetable, only questioned why Biden waited until the 11th hour to start the evacuation. Huge crowds around the Kabul airport present an easy target to ISIS or al-Qaeda suicide bombers. Taliban officials assure the White House that they’re patrolling areas around Kabul and the airport, preventing ISIS or al-Qaeda from striking. Once Baradar assumes leadership, he’ll no doubt seek to keep terrorists out of Kabul and the airport. Baradar ;understands that he must provide security in Kabul.
Senior Afghan official Abdulah Abdulah said ex-president Hamid Karzai met with Taliban’s Kabul governor who “assured us that he would od everything possible for the security of people” in the city. Evacuations continue with a German flight ferrying out 205 German nationals looking to get out. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the U.K. was evacuating about 1,000 people a day. Johnson’s rosy picture was contradicted by former Royal Marine-turned NGO Director in Kabul Paul Farthing. “We can’t leave the country because we can’t get into the airport without putting our lives at risk,” Farthing said, showing that the noose is tightening around Kabul. Army. Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor estimated that about 15,000 Americans live in Afghanistan. Taylor doesn’t know the exact numbers but knows he’s removed about 2,500 Americans out of 17,000 already evacuated.
Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said that the Hamid Karzai airport remains open, not sure how many Americans are making it through Taliban checkpoints to the airport. “We know that we’re fighting against both time and space,” Kirby said. “That’s the race were in right now,” referring to the closing window of meeting the Aug. 31 deadline. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinker said there arer 13 countries taking Afghan refugees, including the United States. “We are tired. We are happy. Were are now in a safe country,” said an Afghan man who arrived in Italy with 79 other former Afghan citizens. Afghan citizens fears reprisals for the ultra-conservative Taliban, who’s sympathies for Western values are limited. European Union countries have limited interest in taking Afghan refugees, especially countries like the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary
Battered by immigration quotas largely from Syria and Iraq have grown weary to taking Mideast refuges, especially after witnessing growing terrorism in Europe. Taliban officials have said they would grant amnesty for Afghan citizens who worked for the U.S.-backed government. But having tasted life under a more progressive Afghan government, many Afghans fear they can’t live under Taliban’[s sharia law. Afghan citizens find life under the repressive Taliban regime intolerable, seeking any chance to get out. Already, the son of the late mujahedeen warrior Ahmad Shah Massoud, 42-year-old Ahmad Massoud, said he wants to lead the resistance against the Taliban. Massound was Assassinate Sept. 9, 2001 by a Taliban suicide bomber two days before Sept. 11. Biden can’[t think now of backing rebel groups to fight Taliban occupation. Time for the U.S. to get out in one piece.
