Biden team surprised by rapid Taliban gains in Afghanistan

US President Joe Biden is seen during a meeting with VP Kamala Harris, their security team and senior officials to obtain updates on the draw down of civilian personnel in Afghanistan. (WhiteHouse/Handout via REUTERS)
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Updated 16 August 2021
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Biden team surprised by rapid Taliban gains in Afghanistan

  • Unlike Obama and Trump who ultimately stood down in the face of resistance from military leaders and other political concerns against an abrupt pullout of US forces in Afghanistan, Biden has been steadfast in his refusal to change the Aug. 31 deadline

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden and other top US officials were stunned on Sunday by the pace of the Taliban’s nearly complete takeover of Afghanistan, as the planned withdrawal of American forces urgently became a mission to ensure a safe evacuation.
The speed of the Afghan government’s collapse and the ensuing chaos posed the most serious test of Biden as commander in chief, and he was the subject of withering criticism from Republicans who said that he had failed.
Biden campaigned as a seasoned expert in international relations and has spent months downplaying the prospect of an ascendant Taliban while arguing that Americans of all political persuasions have tired of a 20-year war, a conflict that demonstrated the limits of money and military might to force a Western-style democracy on a society not ready or willing to embrace it.
By Sunday, though, leading figures in the administration acknowledged they were caught off guard with the utter speed of the collapse of Afghan security forces. The challenge of that effort became clear after reports of sporadic gunfire at the Kabul airport prompted Americans to shelter as they awaited flights to safety after the US Embassy was completely evacuated.
“We’ve seen that that force has been unable to defend the country, and that has happened more quickly than we anticipated,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN, referring to the Afghan military.
The turmoil in Afghanistan resets the focus in an unwelcome way for a president who has largely focused on a domestic agenda that includes emerging from the pandemic, winning congressional approval for trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending and protecting voting rights.
Biden remained at Camp David on Sunday, receiving regular briefings on Afghanistan and holding secure video conference calls with members of his national security team, according to senior White House officials. His administration released a single photo of the president alone in a conference room meeting virtually with military, diplomatic and intelligence experts. The next several days would be critical in determining whether the US is able to regain some level of control over the situation.
The Pentagon and State Department said in a joint statement Sunday that “we are completing a series of steps to secure the Hamid Karzai International Airport to enable the safe departure of US and allied personnel from Afghanistan via civilian and military flights.” Biden ordered another 1,000 troops into Kabul to secure the evacuation.
Discussions were underway for Biden to speak publicly, according to two senior administration officials who requested anonymity to discuss internal conversations. Biden, who is scheduled to remain at the presidential retreat through Wednesday, is expected to return to the White House if he decides to deliver an address.
Biden is the fourth US president to confront challenges in Afghanistan and has insisted he wouldn’t hand America’s longest war to his successor. But the president will likely have to explain how security in Afghanistan unraveled so quickly, especially since he and others in the administration have insisted it wouldn’t happen.
“The jury is still out, but the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,” Biden said on July 8.
As recently as last week, Biden publicly expressed hope that Afghan forces could develop the will to defend their country. But privately, administration officials warned that the military was crumbling, prompting Biden on Thursday to order thousands of American troops into the region to speed up evacuation plans.
One official said Biden was more sanguine on projections for the Afghan fighters to hold off the Taliban in part to prevent a further erosion in morale among their force. It was ultimately for naught.
Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump also yearned to leave Afghanistan, but ultimately stood down in the face of resistance from military leaders and other political concerns. Biden, on the other hand, has been steadfast in his refusal to change the Aug. 31 deadline, in part because of his belief that the American public is on his side.
A late July ABC News/Ipsos poll, for instance, showed 55 percent of Americans approving of Biden’s handling of the troop withdrawal.
Most Republicans have not pushed Biden to keep troops in Afghanistan over the long term and they also supported Trump’s own push to exit the country. Still, some in the GOP are stepping up their critique of Biden’s withdrawal strategy and said images from Sunday of American helicopters circling the US Embassy in Kabul evoked the humiliating departure of US personnel from Vietnam.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell deemed the scenes of withdrawal as “the embarrassment of a superpower laid low.”
Meanwhile, US officials are increasingly concerned about the potential for the rise in terrorist threats against the US as the situation in Afghanistan devolves, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive security matter.
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators on a briefing call Sunday that US officials are expected to alter their earlier assessments about the pace of terrorist groups reconstituting in Afghanistan, the person said. Based on the evolving situation, officials believe terror groups like Al-Qaeda may be able to grow much faster than expected.
The officials on the call told senators that the US intelligence community is currently working on forming a new timeline based on the evolving threats.
Still, there were no additional steps planned beyond the troop deployment Biden ordered to assist in the evacuations. Senior administration officials believe the US will be able to maintain security at the Kabul airport long enough to extricate Americans and their allies, but the fate of those unable to get to the airport was far from certain.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has backed the Biden administration’s strategy, said in an interview that “the speed is a surprise” but would not characterize the situation as an intelligence failure. He said it has long been known that Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban if the United States pulled out.
“Given how much we have invested in the Afghan army, it’s not ridiculous for analysts to believe that they’d be able to put up a fight for more than a few days,” Murphy said. “You want to believe that trillions of dollars and 20 years of investment adds up to something, even if it doesn’t add up for the ability to defend the country in the long run.”
In the upper ranks of Biden’s staff, the rapid collapse in Afghanistan only confirmed the decision to leave: If the meltdown of the Afghan forces would come so quickly after nearly two decades of American presence, another six months or a year or two or more would not have changed anything.
Biden has argued for more than a decade that Afghanistan was a kind of purgatory for the United States. He found it to be corrupt, addicted to America’s largesse and an unreliable partner that should be made to fend for itself. His goal was to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, not building a country.
As vice president, he argued privately against Obama’s surge of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan in a bid to stabilize the country so that the United States and its allies could then pull back their forces.
As president, Biden said in July that he made the decision to withdraw with “clear eyes” after receiving daily battlefield updates. His judgment was that Afghanistan would be divided in a peace agreement with the Taliban, rather than falling all at once.
While Biden has prided himself on delivering plain truths to the American public, his bullish assessment of the situation just a month ago could come back to haunt him.
“There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan,” he said in July. “The likelihood there’s going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely.”


Most Filipinos in favor of rejoining ICC, study shows

Updated 57 min 19 sec ago
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Most Filipinos in favor of rejoining ICC, study shows

  • Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019 under ex-president Rodrigo Duterte
  • 57 percent of respondents support rejoining the court, while 37 percent are against it

MANILA: The majority of Filipinos support the Philippines rejoining the International Criminal Court, the results of a new opinion poll showed on Monday.

The Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019 under ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, as the court’s prosecutors began to look into his “war on drugs” campaign in 2016-22, which they estimate has resulted in the extrajudicial killings of 30,000 Filipinos.

Despite the Philippines’ withdrawal, the court has issued an arrest warrant against Duterte, as it keeps jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed while a country was a member.

The current administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. complied with the arrest warrant and Duterte has been in ICC custody since March, awaiting trial. The Marcos’s spokesperson, Claire Castro, said earlier this month that he was also “open to talking about” rejoining the ICC.

The move would be supported by 57 percent of Filipinos, according to the latest survey by OCTA Research.

“A clear 57 percent of Filipinos support the Philippines rejoining the ICC. In contrast, 37 percent are opposed, and 6 percent remain undecided, indicating broad, though not unanimous, public backing for renewed engagement,” the Quezon City-based polling and research firm said in its report.

The study was conducted between April 20 and April 24, on 1,200 respondents in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

In Mindanao, where Duterte traces his political roots and despite detention won the mayoral election last month, the support for rejoining the ICC was the lowest.

“In Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, and the Visayas, at least 60 percent of respondents express support,” the OCTA Research report said. “In Mindanao, however, is an exception — with only 30 percent supporting the move and 66 percent expressing opposition, the highest rate of opposition recorded across regions.”

The highest rate of support for reengagement with the ICC was among people aged 25-34, with 62 percent of them in favor of the move, while the lowest support was among those aged 45-54, at 50 percent.

Duterte’s arrest has likely contributed to awareness about the ICC across the Philippines, with 85 percent of adult Filipinos claiming to have seen, read, or heard about the court and only 13 percent reporting being unaware of it.

“This widespread awareness sets the stage for significant national conversations on justice, accountability, and the Philippines’ potential reengagement with the ICC,” OCTA Research said.

“Awareness levels are consistently high nationwide. In Metro Manila, 89 percent of respondents indicated familiarity with the ICC, followed closely by Balance Luzon (86 percent), Mindanao (85 percent), and the Visayas (77 percent).”


EU warns Armenia about Russian ‘hybrid threats’

Updated 30 June 2025
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EU warns Armenia about Russian ‘hybrid threats’

YEREVAN: The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas urged Armenia to protect its democratic values amid “hybrid threats” from Russia on a visit to Yerevan on Monday.
Ties between Armenia and its traditional ally Russia have been strained since Azerbaijan’s 2023 offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh, in which Moscow did not intervene.
Russia has for years been the main mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But Brussels has played a stronger role recently, with Russia tied up with its Ukraine invasion.
Kallas visited several days after Armenia arrested a powerful cleric accused of plotting a coup against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
She said she discussed “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and specifically Russian hybrid activities in all countries” with Armenia’s foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan.
“Armenia’s commitment to democracy and freedom is key. These values must be protected, especially in the face of hybrid threats, disinformation, and foreign interference,” she said.
Mirzoyan warned Moscow against interfering in its internal political affairs after the arrest of powerful cleric Bagrat Galstanyan.
But speaking in Kyrgyzstan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Armenia against turning away from Moscow and against “attacks on the canonical, millennia-old Armenian Apostolic Church.”
“We do not put any pressure on Armenian authorities, we will wait for clarity on all these issues,” Lavrov said according to Russian news agencies.
“But we all understand that if Armenia turns away from its allies, its closest partners and neighbors, it will hardly be in the interests of the Armenian people,” he added.
Mirzoyan said Lavrov “would do better not to interfere in Armenia’s internal affairs and domestic politics,” calling on Russian officials to “show greater respect for the sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia.”
Kallas said “the EU and Armenia have never been as close as we are now.”
She announced a new EU-Armenia partnership and a 270-million-euro “resilience and growth plan for 2024-2027.” She also welcomed Armenia’s move to initiate an EU accession process earlier this year.
Kallas re-affirmed the EU’s support to normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.


Cyprus invites Turkiye’s Erdogan to summit despite long rift over 1974 invasion

Updated 30 June 2025
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Cyprus invites Turkiye’s Erdogan to summit despite long rift over 1974 invasion

NICOSIA: Cyprus said on Monday it would invite arch-foe Turkiye to a summit during its European Union presidency next year despite a decades-long rift over Ankara’s 1974 invasion and its backing of a breakaway state on the divided island.
Nicosia will hold the rotating EU presidency in the first six months of 2026 and plans a summit of regional leaders, including Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, on issues related to the Middle East, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said.
“You can’t change geography — Turkiye will always be a neighbor state to the Republic of Cyprus .. Mr.Erdogan will of course be welcome to this summit to discuss developments in the area,” he told journalists in Nicosia.
Christodoulides had earlier said the same in a British podcast aired on Monday in response to a question, saying the summit was planned for April 2026.
The Turkish presidency did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the invitation to Erdogan.
Cyprus and Turkiye have no diplomatic relations and hosting a Turkish president might prove challenging both because of the diplomatic tightrope arising from past conflict and logistical issues.
The eastern Mediterranean island was partitioned by a Turkish invasion in 1974 sparked by a brief Greek-inspired coup, and Ankara supports a breakaway, unrecognized state in north Cyprus where it stations thousands of troops.
Christodoulides heads a Greek Cypriot administration that represents all of Cyprus within the EU but with its powers stopping at a ceasefire line splitting the island into northern and southern sections. Erdogan has never visited the south.


A hard right lawmaker is sworn in as Greece’s migration minister

Updated 30 June 2025
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A hard right lawmaker is sworn in as Greece’s migration minister

  • Thanos Plevris, 48, is expected to maintain Greece’s hard line in migration policy

ATHENS: A hard-right lawmaker was sworn in Monday as Greece’s migration minister, replacing a fellow right-wing political heavyweight who resigned following accusations of involvement in the distribution of European Union farm subsidies.
Five high-ranking government officials, including the previous migration minister, Makis Voridis, three deputy ministers and a secretary general, resigned last Friday following allegations they were involved in a scheme to provide EU agriculture subsidies to undeserving recipients.
The funds, which were handled by a government body known by its Greek acronym OPEKEPE, were allegedly given to numerous people who had made false declarations of owning or leasing non-existent pastures or livestock.
Thanos Plevris, 48, succeeded Voridis and is expected to maintain Greece’s hard line in migration policy. Both Plevris and Voridis joined the conservative New Democracy party in 2012, from the right-wing populist Popular Orthodox Rally, or LAOS, party.
Voridis has denied any involvement in the alleged farm subsidy fraud and said he resigned in order to clear his name.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has investigated the case, passed on a hefty file to the Greek Parliament last week that includes allegations of possible involvement of government ministers. Lawmakers enjoy immunity from prosecution in Greece that can only be lifted by parliamentary vote.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said his New Democracy party had failed to stamp out graft.
“Significant reform efforts were made,” Mitsotakis said in a social media post. “But let’s be honest. We failed.”
He said anyone found to have received EU funds they were not entitled to would be ordered to return the money.
“Our many farmers and livestock breeders who toil and produce quality products, and all law-abiding citizens, will not tolerate scammers who claimed to have non-existent pastures and livestock, or those who enabled them to do so,” Mitsotakis said.


Scorching temperatures grip Europe, putting regions on high alert

Updated 30 June 2025
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Scorching temperatures grip Europe, putting regions on high alert

ANKARA: Forest fires fanned by high winds and hot, dry weather damaged some holiday homes in Turkiye as a lingering heat wave that has cooked much of Europe led authorities to raise warnings and tourists to find ways to beat the heat on Monday.
A heat dome hovered over an arc from France, Portugal and Spain to Turkiye, while data from European forecasters suggested other countries were set to broil further in coming days. New highs are expected on Wednesday before rain is forecast to bring respite to some areas later this week.
“Extreme heat is no longer a rare event — it has become the new normal,” tweeted UN Secretary-General António Guterres from Seville, Spain, where temperatures were expected to hit 42 Celsius (nearly 108 Fahrenheit) on Monday afternoon.
Reiterating his frequent calls for action to fight climate change, Guterres added: “The planet is getting hotter & more dangerous — no country is immune.”
In France, which was almost entirely sweltering in the heatwave on Monday and where air conditioning remains relatively rare, local and national authorities were taking extra effort to care for homeless and elderly people and people working outside.
Some tourists were putting off plans for some rigorous outdoor activities.
“We were going to do a bike tour today actually, but we decided because it was gonna be so warm not to do the bike tour,” said Andrea Tyson, 46, who was visiting Paris from New Philadelphia, Ohio.
Authorities in Portugal issued a red heat warning for seven of 18 districts as temperatures were forecast to hit 43 degrees Celsius, a day after logging a record June temperature of 46.6 degrees C. Almost all inland areas were at high risk of wildfires.
In Turkiye, forest fires fanned by strong winds damaged some holiday homes in Izmir’s Doganbey region and forced the temporary closure of the airport in Izmir, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Authorities evacuated four villages as a precaution, the Forestry Ministry said.
In Italy, the Health Ministry put 21 cities under its level three “red” alert, which indicates “emergency conditions with possible negative effects” on healthy, active people as well as at-risk old people, children and chronically ill people.
Regional governments in northwestern Liguria and southern Sicily in Italy put restrictions on outdoor work, such as construction and agricultural labor, during the peak heat hours.
In southern Germany, temperatures of up to 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) were expected on Monday, and they were forecast to creep higher until midweek – going as high as 39 degrees (102F) on Wednesday.
Some German towns and regions imposed limits on how much water can be taken from rivers and lakes.