Taliban celebrates in Kabul after claiming it has captured
Panjshir province, resulting in full control of Afghanistan
3 Sep, 2021 16:54 / Updated 1 hour ago
Taliban forces patrol in front of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 2, 2021.
© REUTERS/Stringer
Celebratory gunfire has erupted over Kabul amid reports that the Taliban has defeated the Panjshir Valley ‘resistance’. The latter’s commander earlier rejected the claims.
Tracers streaked across the night sky on Friday evening local time, reminiscent of celebrations on Tuesday following the departure of the last US airplane from Kabul. There were different reports as to the occasion, however, with RT’s senior correspondent Murad Gazdiev hearing both talk of victory in Panjshir and the arrival of the Taliban’s leader.
Panjshir Valley, located north of Kabul and made into a separate province by the US-backed Afghan government after the Taliban was ousted in 2001, controls a key strategic road to eastern Afghanistan. As of Thursday, it was held by fighters loyal to Ahmad Massoud, son of an anti-Taliban leader assassinated in 2001, who declared themselves the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA).
Among the ‘resistance’ is Amrullah Saleh, who served as vice president in the US-backed government and now styles himself the rightful president of Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the Taliban claimed to have captured key positions along the main road inside the valley, including a dozen checkpoints. The NRFA said this wasn’t true, and claimed to have inflicted heavy losses on the Taliban.
Saleh sent out a statement on Friday that he was still in the valley and that the resistance was still fighting, denying rumors from Kabul that Panjshir had fallen – but said the situation was difficult and that they were under attack from the Taliban, Pakistani troops and Al-Qaeda.
He also called on the UN and the international community to condemn “war crimes” of the Taliban, saying the group had blocked humanitarian access to Panjshir and shut off power and phone lines, according to TOLO News.
A Twitter account claiming to represent the NRFA has also declared that the resistance is “strong like our mountains here,” and urged Afghans and the world media to not “fall for the Taliban propaganda that they're spreading in Kabul.”
As late as July, the US estimated that the Taliban had no more than 80,000 fighters and that the US-equipped Afghan National Army (ANA) could hold them off for months. Instead, the Taliban swept through most of Afghanistan and took Kabul without much of a fight on August 14, with the ANA surrendering or fleeing. An enormous amount of US-made ANA equipment, weapons and ammunition fell into the Taliban's hands.
Panjshir Valley, AFG
7 Afghan evacuees to Germany failed security checks,
4 were previously deported as criminals – interior minister
3 Sep, 2021 13:50 / Updated 5 hours ago
People evacuated by the German Air Force from Afghanistan land in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, August 2021.
© Marc Tessensohn/Bundeswehr
Four Afghans rescued from Kabul and airlifted to Germany had been previously deported for committing crimes, the country’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer revealed, pledging to prevent an unchecked influx of migrants to Europe.
“Three of them had forged documents, and four had already been deported from Germany to Afghanistan once as criminals. These were serious crimes,” Seehofer told RND news agency, adding that the four previously deported Afghans are now in custody.
We will do everything we can to prevent an uncontrolled influx of migrants into Europe. That is why we are closely monitoring the movement of refugees from Afghanistan and other countries in the regions, such as Syria and Iraq.
Seehofer, who previously argued that the dramatic situation in Afghanistan is not an excuse to relax EU’s migration policies, said Germany will tighten security measures and checks on the border if necessary. “Not everyone who wants to enter our country will be allowed in. As for people who will be allowed in, we must know who they are.”
Like many other Western countries, Germany scrambled to evacuate its nationals and local helpers from Kabul after the Afghan capital was seized by the Taliban on August 15. Overall, the German Air Force brought nearly 5,400 people from Afghanistan, including citizens of at least 45 states, according to the Defense Ministry.
The Taliban rapidly seized control of most of Afghanistan last month amid the withdrawal of US troops, which was completed on August 30. The last German soldiers, who were part of NATO’s nearly two-decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, left the country in late June.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR) spokesperson Andrej Mahecic urged Afghanistan's neighbors this week to “keep their borders open and allow those who may be at risk to seek safety.”
UNCHR Deputy High Commissioner Kelly Clements warned that the region could see up to 500,000 new refugees from Afghanistan by the end of this year.
Stabbing in New Zealand supermarket was
ISIS-inspired terrorist attack – prime minister
3 Sep, 2021 05:34 / Updated 12 hours ago
© Social media
A stabbing attack in an Auckland supermarket in which multiple people were injured was an act of terrorism, New Zealand’s prime minister says. The suspect was shot dead by police.
“This afternoon, at approximately 2:40pm, a violent extremist undertook a terrorist attack on innocent New Zealanders in the New Lynn Countdown [supermarket] in Auckland,” Ardern said at a press conference.
The suspect was a known threat to authorities and under constant monitoring, she added.
Ardern said the terrorist was a Sri Lankan national who arrived in the country in 2011 and became a person of national security interest from 2016. She described the attacker as an ISIS-inspired “lone wolf.”
The PM confirmed that the terrorist injured six people, three of them seriously, on a stabbing rampage inside a supermarket in New Lynn, a suburb of Auckland. The terrorist was shot and killed roughly 60 seconds later by the same police unit that was tasked with monitoring him, Ardern said.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said the terrorist had traveled to the supermarket from Glen Eden, another Auckland suburb, as he had done in the past – all while being “closely watched” by a surveillance team and a tactical team. He entered the store and obtained a knife there.
“When the commotion started, two police tactical operators moved to his location and engaged him. When he approached them with a knife, he was shot and killed,” Coster explained. He said police intervened as quickly as they could, preventing further injuries to shoppers.
The reality is that when you are surveilling someone on a 24/7 basis, it is not possible to be immediately next to them at all times.
Addressing potential questions about the monitoring of the terrorist, the prime minister said the government “utilized every legal and surveillance power available to us to try and keep people safe from this individual.”
The attacker’s name has not been released to the public yet, though Ardern said additional information on his identity would be shared as soon as possible.
A video circulating on social media shows frightened shoppers at the supermarket and a body lying on the floor next to a checkout counter.
The New Zealand Herald reported that the alleged attacker was a 32-year-old man who was considered a public threat for twice buying large hunting knives and possessing an Islamic State propaganda video. The paper reported last month that the man was accused of planning a lone-wolf stabbing attack, but was ultimately sentenced to one year of supervision, a punishment designed to rehabilitate low-level offenders.
Apparently, it didn't work. Radicalized Muslims need to be segregated from society, completely.
In May, a 42-year-old knifeman was detained after injuring four people inside a Countdown store in the city of Dunedin, on New Zealand’s South Island. The prime minister and police said at the time that the incident was not a terrorist attack.
One of the ISIS ‘Beatles’ pleads guilty in US court over
torture & execution of 4 American hostages
3 Sep, 2021 01:10 / Updated 14 hours ago
A member of the notorious Islamic State terrorist cell nicknamed ‘the Beatles’ has pleaded guilty to charges of killing four American captives. He faces life in prison without parole but will be spared the death penalty.
Alexanda Kotey, 37, changed his plea at a hearing in a federal court in Virginia on Thursday, admitting to a role in the abduction and execution of two US journalists and two relief workers. He will not face the death penalty, under the terms of his extradition by the UK, which had stripped Kotey of citizenship due to his membership in the terrorist group.
Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, were captured in Syria by the US-backed Kurdish militia (5th story on link) in 2018. They were identified as members of ‘the Beatles’, a cell made up of English-speaking jihadists that pledged allegiance to the self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’ set up in parts of Syria and Iraq.
The duo was charged in the deaths of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller. Prosecutors said Kotey and Elsheikh supervised the facility where the captives were held and engaged in “a prolonged pattern of physical and psychological violence against hostages.”
In their initial appearance before Judge T.S. Ellis last October, Kotey pleaded not guilty. He changed that plea this week, Ellis said at a video hearing. The judge also said that Kotey had “agreed to cooperate fully and truthfully with the United States and provide the government with all the information you know about any criminal activity,” including beyond what was in the indictment against him.
“Kotey has been afforded due process and, in the face of overwhelming evidence, he made the independent decision to plead guilty to his crimes. The justice, fairness, and humanity that this defendant received in the United States stand in stark contrast to the cruelty, inhumanity, and indiscriminate violence touted by the terrorist organization he espoused,” said acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Raj Parekh.
Contrary to the propaganda perpetuated by ISIS, we have given Alexanda Kotey the opportunity to face justice.
Of the remaining two ‘Beatles’, Aine Davis is in a Turkish prison after being convicted on charges of terrorism, while Mohamed Emwazi, also known as ‘Jihadi John’, was killed in a US airstrike in November 2015.
The terrorists beheaded Foley in August 2014, after US special forces attempted a rescue operation. He was the first American to be executed by the terrorist group. The video of Sotloff’s beheading was released three weeks later, on September 2. Kassig was beheaded in November that year, even though he converted to Islam in captivity.
Mueller, who was captured in Aleppo in 2013, was reportedly given as a sex slave to IS ‘caliph’ Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. The militants claimed she was killed in a February 2015 air raid on their ‘capital’, Raqqa, conducted by Jordan in retaliation for their execution of a captive Jordanian pilot. The US claimed that she was bludgeoned to death by Al-Baghdadi. The 2019 US raid that resulted in the death of al-Baghdadi was carried out by ‘Task Force 8-14’, named after Mueller’s birthday.
“Today is also a painful anniversary. Seven years ago, the world was devastated by images depicting the death of Steven Sotloff,” Parekh added. “Today, through the voices and lives of the victims, Justice spoke, and it is those words that will resonate through history.”
============================================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment