Afghanistan

More than 200 former Guantanamo Bay inmates who were released have returned to terrorism following their release – with 151 still at large, according to newly declassified documents.

The declassified Office of National Intelligence report, which is dated December 18, 2020, highlights that 229 former Guantanamo prisoners have reengaged in acts of terrorism and killing Americans since their release.

Data included in the report shows that 125 former prisoners are confirmed to have reengaged in acts of terrorism since their release, while an additional 104 are currently suspected of reengaging.

Ministers today revealed people on the UK’s terror ‘no fly list’ have already tried to infiltrate RAF flights in Kabul – amid fears of an ISIS suicide bomb attack.

Alarm has been raised that troops are ‘having to keep their fingers on the trigger in one hand while holding a baby in the other’ with desperate crowds trying to get away from the Taliban.

Defence minister James Heappey insisted there are ‘people trying to take advantage of this process to get into the UK to cause us harm’.

h/t TB

The brother of an Afghan translator who worked for American forces during the war is being sentenced to death for helping provide security to his brother in yet another sign that the Taliban’s new ‘moderate’ façade has already crumbled.

News of the letter emerges as Vice President Kamala Harris announced that now was not the time to analyze the withdrawal of the Biden administration from the war-torn country, but instead to focus on evacuation.

CNN confirmed the translator, who has not been named, worked with the US Army, and that his brother, also unnamed, had been sentenced to death.

A week after the Fall of Kabul, the flailing hegemon continues to embarrass itself:

America’s official deadline for total withdrawal from Afghanistan is August 31st, so half the remaining time has already elapsed, and in that first week of a final fortnight, according to the Department of Defense, it evacuated just 2,500 Americans – or about 350 per day. That seems an under-performance – or, as The New York Post’s front-page headline distills it, “DUMKIRK”.

The Taliban say they will not extend the deadline for Western forces to leave Afghanistan.

Spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the BBC’s Yalda Hakim that 31 August was a red line and that any extension would be a “clear violation” of the Doha agreement between the United States and the Taliban.

It was the rescue mission that didn’t happen.

A large group of Afghan interpreters and their families were gathered together by Canadian government officials in a group and waited all day and night for the heroes to come and take them into the safe confines of the Kabul airport.

These are the Afghan interpreters, LECs and families who gathered for the heroic Canadian rescue next to Kabul Airport that never came pic.twitter.com/gFLySFYHED

— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) August 23, 2021

We have the absolute very best people in charge.

As the Taliban mounted a conquest of Afghanistan, the Biden administration continued to believe that the Jihadists were interested in peace and that their campaign of conquest was a negotiating strategy.

The time has come for America to reaffirm the purpose of the military.

America’s longest war is coming to an end. As an active-duty officer, it has been very depressing to watch how quickly Afghanistan has fallen. More than 2,300 military service members and approximately 3,900 U.S. contractors have lost their lives, with another 21,000 injured. The financial cost has been a staggering $2 trillion. Now should be a time for reflection to consider the profound sacrifice of life and resources that the American people have given for the past 20 years. Was it worth it?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the overnight collapse of the American-backed government in Afghanistan could pose a serious threat to countries surrounding the troubled Central Asian nation, including his own.

Speaking on Sunday as part of a meeting with members of the governing United Russia party in the run up to parliamentary elections next month, the president said that the number of civilians fleeing Kabul poses challenges for the international community. “Who are these refugees? How can we tell? There may be thousands, or even millions,” Putin said. “The border is a thousand kilometers – they will get on everything, a car, even a donkey, and flee across the steppe.”