Live updates Taliban rejects extending Aug 31 US pullout calling it a red line

A Taliban spokesman warned that the United States would be crossing a “red line” if the Biden administration keeps troops in Afghanistan past its declared Aug. 31 deadline.

British media reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is widely expected to ask President Biden to extend the deadline at Tuesday’s meeting of the Group of Seven nations.

“If they extend it, that means they are extending occupation. … It will create mistrust between us,” Suhail Shaheen told Sky News in an interview from Doha, Qatar, that aired Monday. “If they are intent on continuing the occupation, it will provoke a reaction,” the Taliban spokesman said.

Biden has said the United States may push back its Aug. 31 deadline to facilitate more evacuations, adding that “our hope is we will not have to extend.” The United States and its allies have evacuated about 37,000 people since the militants swept through the country this month on the heels of the U.S. military withdrawal.

Here’s what to know

A firefight involving unidentified attackers, Western troops and Afghan guards broke out early Monday at a Kabul airport gate, the German military said. One Afghan guard was killed.

The Taliban has sent hundreds of fighters to surround the Panjshir Valley, the last significant outpost in Afghanistan not controlled by the Islamist militant group.

Dozens of veterans’ services organizations are urging Biden to follow through on evacuating Afghan allies who are under threat from the Taliban, saying that not doing so will harm the United States’ reputation.

Key updateFirefight at Kabul airport kills one, U.S. and German soldiers involvedLink copied

A firefight erupted early Monday involving U.S. and German troops, unidentified gunmen and Afghan guards at Kabul airport, where heaving crowds have clamored to get on flights out of the country since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan.

An Afghan guard was killed and three others were injured in the gunfight at an airport gate, the German armed forces said in a Monday tweet, without elaborating.

The situation at the airport is under control, and all airport gates have been closed, two NATO officials told Reuters.

A spokesman for the German military said he could not comment on whether the U.S. and German forces at the airport came under direct fire, saying only that gunfire in the vicinity sparked the flare-up.

“When they noticed fire, they returned fire,” the spokesman said of the coalition forces, declining to be named in line with protocol. He said he could not provide information on how long the engagement lasted or who the attackers were.

The wounded Afghan security forces are being treated at a Norwegian-run medical facility at the airport, he said.

According to U.S. military spokesman Capt. William Urban, the incident began when “an unknown hostile actor fired upon Afghan security forces involved in monitoring access to the gate" and the Afghan and coalition troops returned fire. He said several Afghans were wounded, without specifying the exact number.

Meanwhile, some of the first evacuation flights out of Afghanistan to Germany have arrived at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, the latest transit point for evacuees. The base now hosts roughly 5,000 Afghan evacuees.

Among them: an Afghan woman who gave birth to a baby girl in the cargo bay of a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, just moments after landing at Ramstein on Saturday.

The German military has so far airlifted more than 2,700 people out of Afghanistan, the Defense Ministry said Monday. “And we are flying on. We will fly as many as possible out of #Kabul as long as possible,” it tweeted. “The situation at the airport remains very difficult.”

The return of Taliban militants to the streets of Kabul and other cities around the country has sent thousands of foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans to the capital’s airport, the only exit point from Afghanistan not controlled by the Islamist group. Western forces have flown roughly 28,000 people out of the country since the Taliban takeover, President Biden said Sunday.

Many evacuees have passed through the al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, while Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have also agreed to temporarily host others fleeing Taliban rule.

U.S. is still a ‘global leader,’ Harris says on Asia trip, as allies fret over China, AfghanistanLink copied

Successive U.S. administrations have pledged to pivot away from entanglements in the Middle East and focus American foreign policy on the Indo-Pacific, where a string of nations are anxious about China’s growing military clout and hungry for U.S. engagement.

“The current narrative now is that America is withdrawing, which puts even more pressure on her trip,” said Huong Le Thu, a nonresident fellow with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The United States “needs a win.”

Here’s how the U.S. government can order commercial airlines to help Afghan evacuationsLink copied

It was the height of the Cold War, and the Soviet Union was attempting to gain control of Berlin by cutting ground traffic to and from West Berlin, which was occupied by Britain, France and the United States.

So the Truman administration decided to airlift food and supplies into the city in a massive humanitarian aid operation that would become known as the Berlin Airlift.

Less widely known is that the food, water and medicine airlifted to West Berlin in 1948 was the beginning of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), a program that Biden says will help the Afghanistan evacuation effort in the coming days.

Supplies from American planes helped sustain more than 2 million people in besieged West Berlin for nearly a year.

In the wake of the operation, the Defense Department recognized the need for additional airlifts to support national defense emergencies and created the CRAF, according to the Transportation Department.

More than 70 years later, the United States has ordered the activation of the little-used post-World War II program that will send 18 commercial airplanes to aid the U.S. military evacuation of American nationals and refugees from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Iran restarts fuel exports to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, report says Link copied

Iran in recent days resumed some gasoline exports to Afghanistan after receiving a request from Taliban leaders seeking to counter high fuel prices, Reuters reported Monday quoting an industry official.

“The Taliban sent messages to Iran saying ‘you can continue the exports of petroleum products,’” Hamid Hosseini, spokesman for Iran’s Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union said, Reuters reported.

The group, which now controls nearly all of Afghanistan, cut tariffs on fuel imports by as much as 70 percent, Hosseini said.

Iranian traders were wary of again exporting to Afghanistan as the security situation deteriorated, according to the report. In February, a fuel tanker exploded at a border crossing on the Iran-Afghanistan border, causing a massive fire that burned more than 500 trucks carrying natural gas and fuel, the Associated Press reported at the time.

The Taliban has inherited an economy in crisis and is blocked from accessing most of Afghanistan’s $9 billion in central bank reserves. Under pressure from the Biden administration, the International Monetary Fund has also withheld $450 million in aid for Afghanistan now that the Taliban is in control.

The United States previously allowed Afghanistan to import fuel from Iran, despite economic sanctions targeting Tehran’s oil and gas exports.

Key updateTaliban insists al-Qaeda not found in AfghanistanLink copied

A Taliban spokesman denied that al-Qaeda has any foothold in Afghanistan, dismissing fears that the militants who now rule the country could provide the extremist network with a safe haven.

“They are not present in Afghanistan in the first place,” Mohammed Naeem said in an interview with Saudi Arabia’s al-Hadath TV that aired late Sunday. When pressed, he insisted there was no relationship with al-Qaeda.

The remarks came after back-and-forth comments from U.S. officials in recent days about whether al-Qaeda still has a presence in the country, nearly 20 years after the United States helped topple the Taliban in Afghanistan for sheltering the group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point, with al-Qaeda gone?” President Biden asked last week, justifying the pullout of U.S. troops from the country, a move that critics deemed a hasty abandonment of Afghanistan after two decades of war. The decision has come under fire after the Taliban swept into the capital, Kabul, earlier this month, ousting the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken later said Biden was referring to al-Qaeda’s capacity to carry out another attack on the scale of the 9/11 strikes. But he acknowledged that “remnants” remain in the country.

Naeem, the spokesman for the Taliban’s political bureau, also denied reports that Khalil Haqqani, who is sought by Washington for ties to al-Qaeda operations, was overseeing security in Kabul.

In response to a question about the prospect of the Taliban giving protection to al-Qaeda fighters, including those from neighboring countries, Naeem said that would not happen. “How many times have I said that we will not allow anyone to use the lands of Afghanistan against the security of other nations?” he asked. “Anyone, anyone, anyone from any country.”

About 10,400 evacuated from Kabul on U.S. military flights in 24-hour periodLink copied

About 10,400 people were flown out of Afghanistan on U.S. military flights during a 24-hour period ending early Monday Eastern time, the White House announced, reflecting a significant increase in the pace of evacuations.

In addition to those evacuated on 28 U.S. military flights out of the international airport in Kabul, about another 5,900 were flown out on 61 coalition aircraft, according to the White House.

The White House did not provide a breakdown of how many of those evacuated were U.S. citizens.

With the latest evacuations, the U.S. military has now flown out about 37,000 people since Aug. 14, the White House said.

The number evacuated during the recent 24-hour period exceeds what the military recently said was a capacity of 5,000 to 9,000 per day.

Key updateFrench special forces escort more than 250 E.U. staffers through Kabul to the airport for evacuationLink copied

BRUSSELS â€" About 260 European Union staffers in Afghanistan cleared a major hurdle to evacuation on Monday morning, when they were escorted into the Kabul airport by French special forces, France’s ambassador to Afghanistan said.

The French team coordinated with U.S. troops to bring the Afghan employees to the airport, a journey made perilous by Taliban checkpoints and the crush of people seeking flights out of the country.

“Bravo to the E.U.,” David Martinon, the ambassador, said on Twitter.

The scope of the operation was not immediately clear, and European Union officials did not respond to a request for comment, but the evacuation may signal an evolving strategy. Western countries, especially the United States, have been under pressure to create safe corridors of travel for their Afghan employees and family members seeking to flee Taliban rule.

As the U.S. authorities coordinated flights out of Afghanistan from the Kabul airport, reports surfaced of residents who were unable to get past armed militants manning the checkpoints throughout the city.

President Biden said Sunday that the U.S. military would expand the “safe zone” around the airport and create conduits for people to access the compound “safely and effectively.” He did not provide specifics.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said over the weekend that nearly 150 people had been flown out and landed in Madrid. Borrell said the bloc had a list of roughly 400 staffers and family it was seeking to evacuate. It’s unclear whether the 260 people escorted to the airport Monday represent the last of the E.U. staff to leave.

“Our efforts on the ground continue to get all staff and dependents to safety,” Borrell said Saturday.

U.N. agencies call for humanitarian aid to enter Afghanistan through U.S.-held airportLink copied

The United Nations health and children’s agencies called for delivering tons of medical aid to millions of Afghans through the Kabul airport, which U.S. troops have held since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

The agencies said aid could no longer get into the country where an estimated 18 million people need it, including 300,000 who were uprooted in the past two months.

“With no commercial aircraft currently permitted to land in Kabul, we have no way to get supplies into the country and to those in need,” the World Health Organization and UNICEF said in a statement Monday.

“While the main focus over the past days has been major air operations for the evacuation of internationals and vulnerable Afghans, the massive humanitarian needs facing the majority of the population should not â€" and cannot â€" be neglected,” it said.

The WHO said it had enough emergency stocks inside the country to last only about a week and a half, while 500 tons of supplies for Afghanistan were trapped in Dubai, including surgical tools, as well as medicine for childhood pneumonia, malnutrition and chronic diseases. A WHO spokesperson also appealed for empty evacuation planes to stop in the United Arab Emirates to get the supplies on the way to the Kabul airport.

Since Taliban militants marched into the Afghan capital earlier this month in the wake of the U.S. military withdrawal, U.S. and European troops have been stationed at Kabul airport, the only main exit route not controlled by the Islamist militants. Thousands of people have crowded at the gates, some waiting for days amid the chaos.

The crush outside the airport killed seven Afghan civilians, including a toddler, over the weekend, the British military said. More than 10,000 people had crammed the perimeter of the airfield in a panicked bid to get airlifted out.

Key updateBritain’s Johnson to press Biden to extend U.S. troop stay, consider new Taliban sanctions Link copied

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will ask President Biden to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond the White House’s Aug. 31 deadline because of the significant challenge of evacuating large numbers of foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans seeking to flee the Taliban by that date.

Johnson will lobby Biden on Tuesday at a virtual gathering of Group of Seven leaders, the Guardian newspaper said. The U.S.-led airlift has evacuated fewer people than had been expected, and thousands of Western nationals and many more allied Afghans remain in the Taliban-controlled country.

Britain’s minister for the armed forces, James Heappey, confirmed in Monday interviews with local media that the government was pushing for the deadline to be extended, although he noted that was also up to the Taliban.

For his part, Biden said of the anticipated G-7 request, “I will tell them that we’ll see what we can do.” He added that “our hope is we will not have to extend.”

The United States and its partners have evacuated nearly 28,000 people from Afghanistan since Aug. 14, including 11,000 this weekend, Biden said Sunday.

Johnson will also request that G-7 leaders consider applying new sanctions against the Taliban if the Islamist militant group commits human rights abuses or harbors terrorists in Afghanistan, Reuters reported, citing two unidentified sources. The White House has indicated that it would support such a move.

The Taliban governed Afghanistan brutally between 1996 and 2001, and its past, coupled with reports of recent abuses, has stirred concerns that the new regime will be equally harsh. Allegations of suspected war crimes have reinforced those fears. Taliban leaders also harbored Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda members involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks during their last rule.

Numerous senior Taliban officials, including its de facto leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, remain under United Nations and Western sanctions. A travel ban exemption issued to the organization’s leaders to facilitate peace talks is slated for renewal in September.

Veterans groups urge Biden to complete evacuations, promise to counter hate against AfghansLink copied

Dozens of veterans’ services organizations are urging President Biden to follow through on evacuating Afghan allies who are under threat from the Taliban, saying that failure to do so will both harm America’s reputation and condemn veterans of the war “to a lifetime of moral injury.”

The letter, sent to the White House on Monday morning, asked for a meeting online with the president to discuss the escalating humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the evacuation effort and the granting of humanitarian parole status to “at-risk Afghans without a visa who must be evacuated.”

The groups also promised to back Biden in urging Congress to support efforts to assist Afghan evacuees. They further pledged to help educate Americans on the importance of keeping battlefield commitments to allies, confront “those who politicize the issue of refugee resettlement and condemn those who slander our Afghan allies to undermine support for their resettlement.”

The effort was organized by Kristofer Goldsmith, an Iraq War veteran who is founder and president of High Ground Veterans Advocacy. For years, he said, U.S. troops have promised to get Afghan interpreters and others who assisted the U.S. military out of harm’s way when the war was over.

“Everyone in this coalition knows what hard decisions are,” Goldsmith said. “And knowing that President Biden has hard decisions to make, we hope that he’ll stay on the right side of history and not make liars of a generation of veterans.”

Goldsmith said the groups collectively have power to counter “bigots who are spreading hateful language” online and on television talk shows about Afghans who are allowed to come to the United States after security screening.

Other groups that signed on to the effort include Amvets, the Military Order of the Purple Heart and the Vietnam Veterans of America, according to a copy of the letter.

Australia reportedly tells Afghan family seeking evacuation to mail in visa documentsLink copied

The family members of an Afghan interpreter who helped Australian defense forces in Afghanistan turned to the United States for assistance in fleeing the country after Australian officials reportedly advised them to mail in their visa application for processing.

The man, who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his last name, Nasir, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the postal request was untenable given the chaotic situation in Kabul. His family members turned instead to the U.S. military, which put them on an evacuation flight even with limited documents, he said.

Australia’s home affairs department did not respond to a request for comment. A foreign affairs spokesman said it was a matter for the department. Australia closed its embassy in Kabul in May, ahead of its troop withdrawal, limiting its options for processing visas on the ground.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, under pressure to speed up the rescue process amid the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, has warned that Australia is unlikely to be able to help all those who worked with troops over nearly two decades.

According to Nasir, who served as an interpreter for Australian soldiers between 2009 and 2013 and has since resettled in Australia, his family was taken to the al-Maktoum airport in Dubai and then to a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, where they are still being processed.

“The Americans were aware that these people were the family of an Australian interpreter and they agreed to evacuate them as they had a feeling they were in danger,” he told the state broadcaster.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne told reporters Monday that the country would be willing to support rescue flights after Aug. 31 if the United States decides to delay its withdrawal. Australia has evacuated about 1,000 citizens and Afghans from Kabul in the past week. The country has offered 3,000 visas to fleeing Afghans, as part of its regular annual refugee intake.

Neighboring New Zealand said the first group of citizens, their families and other visa holders evacuated from Afghanistan will arrive in New Zealand on Monday afternoon.

Foreign affairs officials have been providing consular support to more than 200 New Zealanders in Afghanistan to help them onto flights in “dangerous and perilous conditions,” the country’s defense minister, Peeni Henare, said in a statement.

Taliban says U.S. must depart by Aug. 31 or face a ‘reaction’Link copied

A Taliban spokesman warned that the United States would be crossing a “red line” if the Biden administration keeps troops in Afghanistan past its declared Aug. 31 deadline.

“If they extend it, that means they are extending occupation. … It will create mistrust between us,” Suhail Shaheen told Sky News in an interview from Doha, Qatar, that was aired Monday. “If they are intent on continuing the occupation, it will provoke a reaction.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will ask Biden this week to maintain troops beyond this month because of the challenge of airlifting thousands more foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans looking for a way out by then. Many people have been waiting for days at Kabul’s airport, in chaotic, squalid conditions, in hope of boarding a plane.

The Taliban spokesman also insisted that many of the people seeking to flee the country were economic migrants and not really in fear for their lives. “They want to reside in Western countries and that is a kind of economic migration because Afghanistan is a poor country,” Shaheen said.

(There have been numerous reports of the Taliban perpetrating revenge violence against people with links to the U.S.-backed government that has fallen.)

Biden has said the United States may push back its Aug. 31 deadline to facilitate more evacuations, adding, “Our hope is we will not have to extend.” The United States and its allies have evacuated roughly 28,000 people since the militants swept through the country this month on the heels of the U.S. military withdrawal.

Harris calls for ‘robust analysis’ of U.S. exit from AfghanistanLink copied

Vice President Harris said there “will be, and should be, robust analysis” of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, but she maintained that the Biden administration’s focus is on evacuating Afghan nationals, particularly those who are vulnerable and those who worked with Americans.

“That has to be our primary focus and on where we are placing our attention on the issue of Afghanistan,” she said in Singapore on Monday. “The focus has to be on the task at hand.”

Harris’s trip to Singapore and Vietnam this week was meant to be a show of U.S. commitment to the Indo-Pacific region broadly and to the countries of Southeast Asia, strategically located in China’s backyard. But she faced questions and concerns about Washington’s ability to lead â€" as well as counter Beijing’s influence â€" in the wake of the problems in Afghanistan.

The vice president on Monday held a bilateral meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and in a joint news conference, announced several enhanced or new partnerships. These involved the economy, cybersecurity, supply chains and climate change. Lee also said that Singapore would be committing an A330 tanker transport aircraft to help with evacuations from Afghanistan.

Lee, speaking at the news conference, pushed back on the idea that America’s role as a global power is diminished by the developments in Afghanistan.

Countries “have to adjust their position from time to time,” Lee said. “Sometimes it can be done smoothly, sometimes there are hiccups, sometimes things go awry and take time to put right.”

But, he added, the United States continues to have “long-term interests and long-term partners” including his country, proving that it takes its commitments to allies seriously.

“Singapore hopes and works on the basis that the U.S. will continue to play that role and engage with the region for many more years to come,” he said.

Taliban set up showdown in resistance holdoutLink copied

The Taliban has sent hundreds of fighters to Panjshir Valley, the last significant outpost in Afghanistan not controlled by the Islamist militant group. The valley, some 90 miles northeast of Kabul, has long been an anti-Taliban stronghold, and a resistance movement is once again forming there.

Resistance forces are “surrounded,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a Monday statement, adding that the militants wanted to “resolve the issue peacefully through negotiations.”

A Taliban fighter, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to talk to the media, told The Washington Post that the Islamist organization’s leaders had decided to send forces to the valley because talks with the resistance group “couldn’t yield any results.”

Among the anti-Taliban leaders reportedly in the valley are Ahmad Massoud, son of an assassinated military commander who fought the Soviet Union and, later, the Taliban, and Amrullah Saleh, vice president of the now-fallen government.

Massoud told Reuters that he hoped to hold peaceful talks with the Taliban, but his supporters were ready to fight if the militants invaded. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Massoud wrote: “No matter what happens, my mujahideen fighters and I will defend Panjshir as the last bastion of Afghan freedom. Our morale is intact. We know from experience what awaits us.”

It is not clear how many anti-Taliban fighters have massed in the valley, nor how significant any resistance might be. Analysts are unsure how long Massoud’s forces will be able to resist without external support. Forces there include Afghan soldiers who had escaped the Taliban, as well as local militia fighters.

The mountainous valley and its namesake province have long been a bastion of Afghan guerrilla warfare. When Soviet tanks rolled into the country in 1979, the people of the ethnic Tajik-dominated province resisted and the area was never conquered by the Russians. The Taliban did not gain control of the area during its previous rule.

This time around, the Taliban has captured scores of military equipment and supplies from Afghan security forces â€" although military experts have expressed doubt about whether it will be able to use and maintain the most sophisticated equipment, including planes and Blackhawk helicopters.

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