The group of countries that have banded together to fight Islamic State, including the United States, has released a statement pledging to work to eliminate the group and taking special aim at its affiliate in Afghanistan that took responsibility for Monday’s rocket attack on Kabul’s airport.
“We will draw on all elements of national power – military, intelligence, diplomatic, economic, law enforcement – to ensure the defeat of this brutal terrorist organization,” the coalition said in a statement released by the US State Department, which also said the countries would “identify and bring their members to justice”.
A marine with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) carrying a baby as the family processes through the Evacuation Control Center (ECC) as the US winds down its evacuation operation from Kabul. Photograph: Victor Mancilla/US MARINE CORPS/AFP/Getty Images
A plane carrying World Health Organization medicines and health supplies landed in Afghanistan on Monday, the UN health agency said, the first shipment to get in since the country came under the control of the Taliban.
“After days of non-stop work to find a solution, I am very pleased to say that we have now been able to partially replenish stocks of health facilities in Afghanistan and ensure that, for now, WHO-supported health services can continue,” Ahmed Al Mandhari, WHO regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, said in a statement.
The WHO had warned on Friday that medical supplies would run out within days in Afghanistan, announcing that it hoped to establish an air bridge into the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif by then with the help of Pakistani authorities.
The 12.5 tonnes of supplies that arrived on Monday consist of trauma kits and emergency health kits, enough to cover the basic health needs of more than 200,000 people as well as provide 3,500 surgical procedures and treat 6,500 trauma patients, the WHO said. They will be delivered to 40 health facilities in 29 provinces across Afghanistan.
The plane, which was provided by the government of Pakistan, flew from Dubai to Mazar-i-Sharif airport. It was the first of three flights planned with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to fill urgent shortages in medicines and medical supplies in Afghanistan.
The UK is a “long way” from offering diplomatic recognition to the Taliban in Afghanistan, a Foreign Office minister said as international powers considered how to deal with the new regime in Kabul.
James Cleverly said the Taliban would be judged on its actions as an intensive round of diplomacy began in Washington and at the United Nations, PA news reports.
The Taliban have been urged to allow safe passage to people seeking to leave Afghanistan as Cleverly acknowledged it was impossible to say how many people eligible to come to the UK were still in the country.
Around 15,000 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan in a “herculean” effort, Cleverly said, but Labour has claimed around 5,000 may have been left behind and ministers have faced criticism over the UK response.
Cleverly acknowledged some emails about desperate Afghans seeking to leave may not have been read in the Foreign Office as priority in the evacuation effort was given to people who could be processed and reached Kabul airport before the airlift ended.
With the final withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan due on Tuesday, violence continues in Kabul.
Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan two weeks ago, Chinese analysts have been debating to what extent the security vacuum left by the US would pose a potential threat – or an opportunity – to China, and how the issue of Afghanistan could play a role in the US-China bilateral relationship.
Andrew Small, a senior fellow at the Asia programme of the German Marshall Fund, a thinktank said:
China does think the US will have to count on it more in Afghanistan in [the] future, and they’re [also] attempting to couple it with climate change, which they know is also seen on the US side as an area where they rely on Chinese cooperation.
But Small said it was also clear from the call between the two top diplomats on Sunday that China needed the US in various ways on Afghanistan too. After all, Beijing does not want a pariah state in dire economic straits in its backyard that would magnify all the security concerns it already has around Afghanistan.
Small said:
The two sides need to keep channels open and maintain at least some minimal levels of cooperation but that’s very much in Beijing’s interest, too.
It is the second time since the Taliban’s takeover that the two diplomats had spoken. On 16 August, Wang told Blinken in a call that the hasty pullout of US troops from Afghanistan had a serious negative impact, but pledged to work with Washington to promote stability in the country.
But Wang said Washington could not expect China’s cooperation if it was also trying to “contain and suppress China and harm China’s legitimate rights and interests,” Chinese state media reported at the time of the earlier call.
Read the full story here:
Talks are due in Doha and New York to try to reach an international consensus on the conditions for recognising the Taliban government in Afghanistan. There are signs of tensions between superpowers after Russia called on the US to release Afghan central bank reserves that Washington blocked after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul earlier this month.
“If our western colleagues are actually worried about the fate of the Afghan people, then we must not create additional problems for them by freezing gold and foreign exchange reserves,” said the Kremlin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov.
He said the US must urgently unfreeze these assets, “to bolster the rate of the collapsing national currency”.
The leading western G7 powers are meeting Turkey, Qatar and Nato in Doha to discuss further details of the how Kabul’s civilian airport could be reopened to allow those that want to leave Afghanistan with valid documents to do so. More than 100 nations signed a joint statement saying the Taliban has agreed to facilitate this. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is chairing the meeting and due to announce its outcome later.
At the same the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, started a four-day sweep through countries bordering Afghanistan to secure their agreement to house refugees temporarily, or to use the country as a transit point pending processing. So far Qatar has acted as the transit point for more than 40% of the 100,000-plus refugees airlifted out of the country. Maas is due to visit Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Pakistan.
In Turkey, his first stopover, Maas said he was grateful for the country’s offer. “We ask the Taliban to promise to provide security,” he said. “We have to negotiate with the Taliban. They want the airport to be operated. In this regard, we are ready to contribute both financially and technically.”
James Cleverly, the UK minister for the Middle East and north Africa, said he could not see how Kabul airport could be operated by foreign powers without boots on the ground, something that is not currently possible.
Read more here:
Politico is reporting that US commanders had planned to close gates at the airport on Thursday, fearing an attack, but chose to keep them open to allow the British to continue to evacuate.
Hours later a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest at the airport, killing nearly 200 people, including 13 US service members.
According to Politico:
Commanders calling in from Kabul relayed that the Abbey Gate, where American citizens had been told to gather in order to gain entrance to the airport, was “highest risk,” and detailed their plans to protect the airport.
“I don’t believe people get the incredible amount of risk on the ground,” Austin said, according to the classified notes.
On a separate call at 4 that afternoon, or 12:30 am on Thursday in Kabul, the commanders detailed a plan to close Abbey Gate by Thursday afternoon Kabul time. But the Americans decided to keep the gate open longer than they wanted in order to allow their British allies, who had accelerated their withdrawal timeline, to continue evacuating their personnel, based at the nearby Baron Hotel.
The publication has gone to the Ministry of Defence for a response and this is what they have received back:
Alex Wickham(@alexwickham)
This appears as close to confirmation as we’re going to get from the MoD that, per @laraseligman POLITICO scoop, the Americans wanted to close the gates at Kabul airport sooner fearing an attack, but kept them open to allow Britain to continue evacuating https://t.co/itrLxnAck7pic.twitter.com/NIbSyNPvRv
China’s top diplomat has urged the international community to engage with Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers and “guide it actively” in a phone call with US secretary of state. Antony Blinken, on Sunday, according to China’s foreign ministry.
Wang Yi, Chinese state councillor and foreign minister, also said that Washington should work with the international community to help the new regime run governmental functions normally, according to a Chinese statement. He added that US’s “hasty withdrawal” could allow terrorist groups to “regroup and come back stronger”.
US state department spokesperson Ned Price said in a short statement that Blinken and Wang spoke about “the importance of the international community holding the Taliban accountable for the public commitments they have made regarding the safe passage and freedom to travel for Afghans and foreign nationals”.
The two foreign ministers also spoke of the bilateral relationship, with Wang saying that the Chinese side would consider how to engage with the United States “based on its attitude towards China”. But he also said that “dialogue is better than confrontation, and cooperation is better than conflict”.
Analysts said that the situation on the ground in Afghanistan is likely to deteriorate further as the deadline for US withdrawal looms on 31 August. On Monday, the US announced that its anti-missile system had intercepted as many as five rockets fired early in the morning towards the airport in Kabul.
We’ll have more on this story shortly.
Russia has called on the US to release Afghan central bank reserves that Washington blocked after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul earlier this month.
“If our western colleagues are actually worried about the fate of the Afghan people, then we must not create additional problems for them by freezing gold and foreign exchange reserves,” said the Kremlin’s envoy to AfghanistanZamir Kabulov, AFP reports.
The US must urgently unfreeze these assets, he said on the state-run Rossiya 24 network, “to bolster the rate of the collapsing national currency”.
Kabulov added that without doing so the new Afghan authorities will turn to “the trafficking of illegal opiates” and “sell on the black market the weapons” abandoned by the Afghan army and the US.
The Afghan central bank’s gross reserves totalled $9.4bn (£6.83m) at the end of April, according to the IMF. The majority of these funds are held outside of Afghanistan.
Washington has indicated that the Taliban will not have access to assets held in the US, without specifying the total amount there.
Afghanistan has long been the world’s largest producer of opium and heroin, with profits from the illicit trade helping fund the Taliban.
As evacuations from Kabul wind down in coming days, “a larger crisis is just beginning” in Afghanistan and for its 39 million people, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Monday, appealing for support.
Filippo Grandi, UN high commissioner for refugees, whose agency said last Friday that up to 500,000 Afghans could flee by year-end, reiterated a call for borders to remain open and for more countries to share “this humanitarian responsibility” with Iran and Pakistan which already host 2.2 million Afghans, Reuters reports.
Grandi said in a statement:
The airlifts out of Kabul will end in a matter of days, and the tragedy that has unfolded will no longer be as visible. But it will still be a daily reality for millions of Afghans. We must not turn away. A far greater humanitarian crisis is just beginning.
A Foreign Office minister has defended the organisation’s response to the crisis in Afghanistan amid allegations that Dominic Raab is a “control freak” who faces the sack.
James Cleverly insisted the allegations about the foreign secretary’s style of leadership were “not true” and insisted the organisation had responded swiftly to the unprecedented events in Afghanistan.
Raab has faced criticism for being on holiday in Crete as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan. In the latest sign of the Whitehall infighting, one government source told the Times: “I think he is toast in the next reshuffle,” and the Foreign Office “is a poorly-led organisation with a control freak in charge who won’t delegate anything”.
But Cleverly told Times Radio:
I don’t know where that’s where that’s coming from. The organisation that I see really sprang quickly into an activity that was at a scale and nature that was unprecedented.
Asked directly whether Raab was a “control freak”, Cleverly said: “No, that’s not true. It’s not true.”
On the suggestion Raab was “toast” in the next reshuffle because of his failings, Cleverly told LBC Radio:
Government departments and ministers – including Dominic – worked incredibly hard, we worked together, we were able to get out over 15,000 people in those last couple of weeks, because all bits of government had a role to play and discharged those roles and those functions incredibly, incredibly, professionally.
That includes Dominic, as well. None of us could have done it on our own, we could only do it working collaboratively, that’s what happened.
It was a brutal, horrible, incredibly difficult time and yet – as I say – we were able to evacuate over 15,000 people and that is a herculean task.
No comments:
Post a Comment