KABUL, Afghanistan: As the end to America’s “forever war” rapidly approaches, the US Embassy and other diplomatic missions in Kabul are watching a worsening security situation and looking at how to respond.
In the countryside, districts are falling to the Taliban in rapid succession. America’s warlord allies are re-arming their militias, which have a violent history, raising the specter of another civil war once the US withdrawal is finished, expected in August.
A US Embassy spokesperson told The Associated Press that security assessments are frequent these days. Speaking on condition of anonymity in line with briefing rules, she said the embassy is currently down to 1,400 US citizens and about 4,000 staff working inside the compound the size of a small town.
A well-fortified town, that is. Besides its own formidable security, the embassy lies inside Kabul’s Green Zone, where entire neighborhoods have been closed off and giant blast walls line streets closed to outside traffic. Afghan security forces guard the barricades into the district, which also houses the Presidential Palace, other embassies and senior government officials.
The only route out is Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, currently protected by US and Turkish troops. Before America can declare its war over, the security of the airport will have to be settled. Ankara is in talks with Washington, the United Nations and the Afghan government to decide who will protect the airport and who will foot the bill.
For now, the airport is running without interruption, except for restrictions imposed by a deadly third COVID surge that has prompted some countries to suspend flights to Kabul. However, India is not one of them — as many as eight flights arrive weekly from India — and as a result, the virus’ delta variant, first identified in India, is rampant in Afghanistan.
In Kabul, it’s common to hear speculation about when and if the US Embassy will evacuate and shut down, with images resurrected of America’s last days in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war.
Already, long before the last US and NATO troops began packing to leave, American diplomats arriving at the airport were taken to the heavily fortified US Embassy by helicopter. The 4-mile road trip through Kabul’s chaotic traffic was considered too dangerous.
Suicide bombers struck along that road with uncomfortable frequency.
For many of Washington’s new diplomats to Afghanistan, their view of the country and Kabul is limited to what they see from the confines of the sprawling embassy compound, hidden deep inside the Green Zone and protected by 10-foot blast walls, heavily armed US Marines, explosive-sniffing dogs and cameras at every corner.
An American employee of Resolute Support, the name of NATO’s military mission in Afghanistan, who arrived in the country last November, had not been outside the giant gates of the mission by June.
Citing security concerns, the US spokesperson said she couldn’t reveal evacuation plans, or even if that’s a part of today’s conversation, but said the embassy has detailed plans for every scenario to protect its staff.
If there is an evacuation, it wouldn’t be the first.
The US Embassy in Kabul shut down in 1989, when the former Soviet Union left the country after negotiating an end to its 10-year invasion of Afghanistan. The pro-communist government collapsed three years later, followed by a brutal civil war carried out by most of the same US-allied warlords who still operate in Kabul today — another reason why fear of a new civil war resonates.
The Taliban have issued statements saying they are not looking for a military takeover of Kabul. Washington has repeatedly warned that a military move on the Afghan capital would return the insurgent movement to pariah status, denying it international recognition and assistance.
Still, not long after President Joe Biden announced in mid-April that American troops would be gone by Sept. 11, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani expressed concern that Afghan forces might not be able to protect all the diplomatic missions in Kabul, according to an official familiar with the discussions. There were even suggestions that smaller embassies move into the US compound for their protection.
The US Embassy responded with an immediate so-called “ordered lockdown,” further restricting staff movements and new arrivals.
On April 27, the US Embassy’s chargé d’affaires, Ross Wilson, tweeted that non-essential US personnel would leave. The spokesperson would not say how many people left under that order, saying only that staff numbers are constantly being assessed.
Wilson blamed the departure on “increasing violence & threat reports in Kabul.” He also posted a US Embassy site warning to all American citizens to leave Afghanistan immediately on any available commercial flight. And to Americans planning to visit Afghanistan, the order was clear: don’t.
The Australian Embassy closed, and most other Western embassies reduced their staff.
Most expatriate or foreign staff with international aid organizations in Kabul also left, said Naemat Rohi, deputy director of Akbar, an umbrella organization representing 167 aid organizations, including 87 international charities.
“They said they were going on R&R, but that was just so as not to create panic among their local staff, but they were leaving for their security reasons,” he said.
The exodus prompted the Taliban to issue multiple statements assuring aid groups and Afghans working for Western organizations they had nothing to fear.
But that hasn’t reassured interpreters who worked for the US military. The spokesperson said some might be evacuated from Afghanistan but relocated to a third country while their immigration visas to the US are processed. Thousands of applications are in the pipeline. Thousands more that were denied are being appealed.
The Taliban’s quick successes in northern Afghanistan, particularly the rapid surrender of Afghan soldiers in several instances, has heightened security fears in Kabul, where the presence of the heavily armed warlords resurrects images of the 1990s civil war.
Marshal Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek warlord accused of war crimes, some against personal enemies who were once his allies, holds a military base on a hilltop overlooking Kabul’s posh Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood. His militia has an uneasy relationship with Ghani’s government and other powerful warlords, including the new Defense Minister Bismillah Khan.
Heavily armed guards patrol Wazir Akbar Khan streets, lined with marble mansions of government officials, many of them former warlords. Though united today against the Taliban, they have a brutal history of fighting each other.
For some, a Taliban play for Kabul seems inevitable.
“After the takeover of the districts and some provinces, the Taliban will make a try to enter Kabul,” said Torek Farhadi, a former adviser to the Afghan government. “They will face the regular army, but also the warlords who have accumulated huge wealth out of war related contracts.”
After troops exit, safety of US Embassy in Kabul top concern
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After troops exit, safety of US Embassy in Kabul top concern
- The Australian Embassy closed, and most other Western embassies reduced their staff
Scotland leader refuses to be drawn on Lockerbie bombing inquiry
- John Swinney would not speculate on backing public inquiry into 1988 attack while criminal case against suspected bomb maker underway in US
- Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over UK that killed 270 people blamed on Libyan intelligence officials
LONDON: Scotland’s first minister has refused to be drawn on whether he supports a public inquiry into the 1988 bombing of a passenger plane blamed on Libyan intelligence officials.
The downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie killed 270 people and remains by far the most deadly terror attack on British soil.
Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi was jailed in 2001 for his role in the plot to place the bomb on board the flight. Al-Megrahi, who died in 2012, always insisted he was innocent and doubts have been raised about his conviction.
A television series released last week in the UK, which tells the story of the investigation by one of the victim’s fathers, has renewed interest in the case, as has an upcoming court case in the US of the alleged bomb maker, the Libyan Abu Agila Masud.
A member of the Scottish Parliament, Christine Grahame, asked First Minister John Swinney on Thursday if he supported a UK inquiry into the bombing given the “remaining concerns for some, including myself, about the credibility of the conviction” of Al-Megrahi.
She also highlighted what she described as the resistance of the UK Government to releasing relevant documents in relation to the bombing, the Daily Record reported.
Swinney said that while there was a criminal case underway in the US, “I would prefer not to speculate on possible inquiries.”
Al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted for the attack and there has been no public inquiry in the UK.
His trial by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands took place more than 11 years after the bombing and followed long negotiations with the then Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to hand him over along with another suspect.
The recent TV series “Lockerbie: A Search for Truth” stars British actor Colin Firth as Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed on the flight as it flew from London Heathrow to New York City four days before Christmas.
Swire believes that Al-Megrahi, who died in 2012 three years after being released on compassionate grounds, was innocent.
Two-thirds of the victims of the bombing were American and 11 residents in the town of Lockerbie were killed when sections of the aircraft fell on residential areas.
Russia breaches frontline river in east Ukraine, official says
- The Oskil river is the de-facto front line in parts of the eastern Kharkiv region
- The major of the local hub, Kupiansk, said the situation was “extremely difficult”
KYIV: Russian forces have established a bridgehead on the Ukrainian-held side of a frontline river in the east of the country, a local official said Thursday, pointing to Kyiv’s mounting battlefield struggles.
The Oskil river is the de-facto front line in parts of the eastern Kharkiv region, with Ukrainian troops entrenched mainly on the western bank and Russian forces moving to capture the eastern side.
Kremlin forces have been launching audacious attempts to cross, and local Ukrainian official Andrii Besedin told state television Thursday they had managed to cross and establish positions.
“The enemy is trying to gain a foothold in the town of Dvorichna, which is already on the right bank of the Oskil, and expand the entire bridgehead,” he said.
Besedin, the major of the local hub, Kupiansk, said the situation was “extremely difficult” and warned that Russian troops could use the bridgehead to flank Ukrainian positions.
He said Russian forces were now just two kilometers (about one mile) outside of Kupiansk, which was one of the main prizes of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in late 2022.
“The enemy is constantly trying to carry out assault operations,” he said.
The advances conceded by the local official come at a precarious time for Ukrainian forces across the sprawling front, where Russian forces have been advancing at their fastest pace in around two years.
If Russia captures more territory around Kupiansk or in the wider Kharkiv area it would undo gains that Ukraine secured in a sweeping 2022 offensive that embarrassed the Kremlin.
Both sides are looking to secure a better position on the battlefield before incoming US president Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, almost three years after Russia invaded.
Putin says more needs to be done to clean up Black Sea oil spill
- The oil leaked from two aging tankers after they were hit by a storm on Dec. 15 in the Kerch Strait
- One sank and the other ran aground
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that more needed to be done to clean up an oil spill in the Black Sea, saying efforts so far appeared to have been insufficient to deal with the ecological disaster.
The oil leaked from two aging tankers after they were hit by a storm on Dec. 15 in the Kerch Strait. One sank and the other ran aground.
Approximately 2,400 metric tons of oil products spilled into the sea, Russian investigators said last week, in what Putin on Thursday called “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in years.”
When the disaster struck, state media reported that the stricken tankers, both more than 50-years old, were carrying some 9,200 metric tons (62,000 barrels) of oil products in total.
Since the spill, thousands of emergency workers and volunteers have been working to clear tons of contaminated sand and earth on either side of the Kerch Strait. Environmental groups have reported deaths of dolphins, porpoises and sea birds.
The Kerch Strait runs between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and separates Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula from Russia’s Krasnodar region.
Putin told a government meeting that the clean-up efforts had been poorly coordinated between regional and federal bodies.
“From what I see and from the information I receive, I conclude that everything being done to minimize the damage is clearly not enough yet,” the Kremlin leader told officials.
He called for a commission to be formed to mitigate the disaster and prevent oil products from leaking from flooded tankers in the future.
Firefighters battle devastating Los Angeles wildfires as winds calm somewhat
- Ferocious winds that drove the flames and led to chaotic evacuations have calmed somewhat and were not expected to be as powerful during the day
- Nearly 2,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed in those blazes
LOS ANGELES: Firefighters battled early Thursday to control a series of major fires in the Los Angeles area that have killed five people, ravaged communities from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena and sent thousands of people frantically fleeing their homes.
Ferocious winds that drove the flames and led to chaotic evacuations have calmed somewhat and were not expected to be as powerful during the day. That could provide an opportunity for firefighters to make progress reining in blazes that have hopscotched across the sprawling region, including massive ones in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.
The latest flames broke out Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills, striking closer to the heart of the city and the roots of its entertainment industry and putting densely populated neighborhoods on edge during exceptionally windy and dry conditions. But only about a mile away, the streets around the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the TCL Chinese Theatre and Madame Tussauds were bustling, and onlookers used their phones to record video of the blazing hills.
Within a few hours, firefighters had made major progress on the Sunset Fire in the hills. Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott said they were able to keep the fire in check because “we hit it hard and fast and mother nature was a little nicer to us today than she was yesterday.”
A day earlier, hurricane-force winds blew embers through the air, igniting block after block in the coastal neighborhood of Pacific Palisades as well as in Altadena, a community near Pasadena that is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east. Aircraft had to be grounded for a time because of the winds, hampering firefighting efforts.
Nearly 2,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed in those blazes — called the Palisades and Eaton fires — and the number is expected to increase. The five deaths recorded so far were from the Eaton Fire.
Some 130,000 people have been put under evacuation orders, as fires have consumed a total of about 42 square miles (108 square kilometers) — nearly the size of the entire city of San Francisco. The Palisades Fire is already the most destructive in Los Angeles history.
As flames moved through his neighborhood, Jose Velasquez sprayed down his family’s Altadena home with water as embers rained down on the roof. He managed to save their home, which also houses their family business selling churros, a Mexican pastry. Others weren’t so lucky. Many of his neighbors were at work when they lost their homes.
“So we had to call a few people and then we had people messaging, asking if their house was still standing,” he said. “We had to tell them that it’s not.”
In Pasadena, Fire Chief Chad Augustin said the city’s water system was stretched and was further hampered by power outages, but even without those issues, firefighters would not have been able to stop the fire due to the intense winds fanning the flames.
“Those erratic wind gusts were throwing embers for multiple miles ahead of the fire,” he said.
The dramatic level of destruction was apparent in a comparison of satellite images before and after the fire.
A swath of about 250 homes in an Altadena neighborhood that had been dotted with the green canopies of leafy trees and aquamarine swimming pools was reduced to rubble. Only a few homes were left standing and some were still in flames in images from Maxar Technologies. Along a stretch of about 70 wall-to-wall homes overhanging the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, fewer than 10 appeared to be intact.
In Pacific Palisades, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity homes, block after block of California Mission Style homes and bungalows were reduced to charred remains. Ornate iron railing wrapped around the smoldering frame of one house Swimming pools were blackened with soot, and sports cars slumped on melted tires.
More than half a dozen schools in the area were either damaged or destroyed, and UCLA has canceled classes for the week.
Another fire has hit Sylmar, a middle and working-class area on the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley that has been the site of many devastating blazes.
Fast-moving flames allowed little time to escape
The main fires grew rapidly in distinctly different areas that had two things in common: densely packed streets of homes in places that are choked with vegetation and primed to burn in dry conditions.
Flames moved so quickly that many barely had time to escape. Police sought shelter inside their patrol cars, and residents at a senior living center were pushed in wheelchairs and hospital beds down a street to safety.
In the race to get away in Pacific Palisades, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and set out on foot.
Actors lost homes
The flames marched toward highly populated and affluent neighborhoods, including Calabasas and Santa Monica, home to California’s rich and famous.
Mandy Moore, Cary Elwes and Paris Hilton were among the stars who lost homes. Billy Crystal and his wife Janice lost their home of 45 years in the Palisades Fire.
“We raised our children and grandchildren here. Every inch of our house was filled with love. Beautiful memories that can’t be taken away,” the Crystals wrote in the statement.
In Palisades Village, the public library, two major grocery stores, a pair of banks and several boutiques were destroyed.
“It’s just really weird coming back to somewhere that doesn’t really exist anymore,” said Dylan Vincent, who returned to the neighborhood to retrieve some items and saw that his elementary school had burned down and that whole blocks had been flattened.
Higher temperatures and less rain mean a longer fire season
California’s wildfire season is beginning earlier and ending later due to rising temperatures and decreased rainfall tied to climate change, according to recent data. Rains that usually end fire season are often delayed, meaning fires can burn through the winter months, according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association.
Dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, which has not seen more than 0.1 inches (2.5 millimeters) of rain since early May.
The winds increased to 80 mph (129 kph) Wednesday, according to reports received by the National Weather Service. Fire conditions could last through Friday — but wind speeds were expected to be lower on Thursday.
Landmarks get scorched and studios suspend production
President Joe Biden signed a federal emergency declaration after arriving at a Santa Monica fire station for a briefing with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who dispatched National Guard troops to help.
Several Hollywood studios suspended production, and Universal Studios closed its theme park between Pasadena and Pacific Palisades.
As of early Thursday, around 250,000 people were without power in southern California, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.
Several Southern California landmarks were heavily damaged, including the Reel Inn in Malibu, a seafood restaurant. Owner Teddy Leonard and her husband hope to rebuild.
“When you look at the grand scheme of things, as long as your family is well and everyone’s alive, you’re still winning, right?” she said.
Millions of Filipino Catholics join Black Nazarene procession in Manila
- Original black wooden statue of Jesus Christ was brought from Mexico in 1606
- About 80% of the Philippines’ 110 million population are Catholics
MANILA: Millions of Filipino Catholics joined an annual procession of a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ in Manila on Thursday in one of the world’s largest displays of devotion.
Clad in maroon and yellow, devotees flooded the streets of the Philippine capital to swarm the Black Nazarene, the black wooden statue of Jesus Christ bearing down a cross, as people jostled for a chance to pull the thick rope towing the carriage across the city.
In Asia’s largest Christian-majority country, about 80 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million population identify as Catholic, a key legacy of Spanish colonization of the archipelago for more than 300 years.
The 6.5 km-long procession, known as Traslacion, or “transfer,” commemorates the 1787 relocation of the Black Nazarene from a church inside the colonial Spanish capital of Intramuros in Manila’s center to its present location in Quiapo Church.
“Quiapo’s site of devotion, located outside the Spanish colonial center of Intramuros, showcases ordinary Filipinos’ appropriation of this faith. Moreover, the tradition of making and keeping panata (pledges) to the Black Nazarene has been passed down through many generations of Filipinos,” Wilson Espiritu, assistant professor of theology at the Ateneo de Manila University, told Arab News.
The original statue, created by an unknown Mexican sculptor, was brought to the Philippines from Mexico in 1606, first staying in the Church of San Juan Bautista in Bagumbayan before it was moved to Intramuros in 1608.
Many devotees believe the statue is miraculous, and that touching it or the ropes attached to its float can heal illness or turn around misfortune.
Part of its miraculous lore derived from the statue surviving multiple earthquakes, fires, floods and even the bombing of Manila in the Second World War.
The annual procession celebrating the statue, also known as the Feast of the Black Nazarene, has parallels in other Catholic-dominant countries, such as the Festival of Cristo Negro of Portobelo in Panama.
“To me, this shows the ‘Catholicity’ of this popular Filipino devotion. Nevertheless, what distinguishes this devotion is its historical background and cultural integration in Filipino society,” Espiritu said.
Manila police have estimated that at least 6 million people will join the procession. This year marks the first time that the feast will be observed nationwide, with churches across the country also expected to hold various celebrations.
Preparations have been underway since Monday evening and as enthusiasm buzzed among thousands of devotees in the lead-up to the procession, church officials had to allow the ritual of pahalik — the kissing of the statue — hours ahead of schedule.
For many Filipinos, religious traditions like this provide an opportunity “to rekindle the sense of collective hope, in aspiring for a better life,” said Robbin Dagle, a lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University who has researched religion and society in the Philippines.
“Little acts, such as sharing food and water among devotees, highlight how religious events reinforce community ties. Here, Filipinos place their faith on each other and to Jesus, who knew and went through suffering himself, rather than on earthly leaders who are distant from them, and have failed them time and time again,” he told Arab News.
“Filipinos continue to find meaning in religious traditions because of what it represents: Community and unceasing hope. Both of these are increasingly challenging to find in urban life.”
