Attention to the Unseen

Jason Burke reports: The prime suspect for the suicide bombing at Kabul airport is the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Sunday there was an “acute” and “persistent” threat to the continuing evacuations from the Afghan capital from ISKP – which takes its name Khorasan from that used by a series of Muslim imperial rulers for a swath of land stretching from Iran to the…

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Politico reports: U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials. The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last…

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The Taliban came to the fore during Afghanistan’s civil war that followed the Soviet pullout of 1989. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images By Ali A. Olomi, Penn State The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban left many surprised. To Ali Olomi, a historian of the Middle East and Islam at Penn State University, a key to understanding what is happening now – and what might take place next – is looking at the past and how the Taliban came to prominence….

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The Guardian reports: The Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, believes he is close to gaining Joe Biden’s support to stage a special G20 peace conference on Afghanistan next month that will include key players with close contact with the Taliban, including China, Russia and Turkey. Draghi, the chair of the G20 group of nations, has been working on the plan for days, holding talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Italian prime minister is also expected to hold a…

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Paula J. Dobriansky and Paul Saunders write: President Biden seems to have set a trap for himself—and for Americans, allied personnel and Afghans seeking to leave Afghanistan. Those civilians were stranded after Mr. Biden withdrew U.S. troops only to be surprised by the Taliban’s quick takeover. Mr. Biden promised to evacuate them by Aug. 31, and the Taliban said they’d hold him to that deadline. On Monday the administration signaled that it intends to abide by it. It won’t be…

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Arash Azizzada writes: The day our lives fell apart, Sunday, Aug. 15, I received a call from a close friend in Kabul. Usually cool and confident, vital skills for a community leader in a complex, conflict-ridden place like Afghanistan, my friend now whispered in desperation. “I need to get out,” he said. “Help me.” In the background, I could hear the city bustling nervously as millions of people absorbed the fact of the Taliban’s conquest. My friend, a vocal activist…

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The Washington Post reports: CIA Director William J. Burns held a secret meeting Monday in Kabul with the Taliban’s de facto leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and the Biden administration since the militants seized the Afghan capital, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. President Biden dispatched his top spy, a veteran of the Foreign Service and the most decorated diplomat…

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Jordan Michael Smith writes: On a warm June evening in downtown Manhattan, tourists hoping to visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum are disappointed. The spot is closed after 5 p.m., a security guard repeats patiently to visitors. From behind a rope, the tourists look at the spaces where the Twin Towers used to be. The names of the 2,977 people killed by Al Qaeda in September 2001 are etched into bronze parapets surrounding two pools. Water flows down…

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Alissa J. Rubin reports: Taliban fighters brandished Kalashnikovs and shook their fists in the air after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, defying American warnings that if they did not hand over Osama Bin Laden, their country would be bombed to smithereens. The bravado faded once American bombs began to fall. Within a few weeks, many of the Taliban had fled the Afghan capital, terrified by the low whine of approaching B-52 aircraft. Soon, they were a spent force, on the…

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CNN reports: The US military is advising President Joe Biden that he must decide by Tuesday whether to extend the evacuation in Afghanistan beyond August 31, according to a defense official directly familiar with the discussions. Military advisers have told the White House that the decision must be made by Tuesday in order to have enough time to withdraw the 5,800 troops currently on the ground, as well as their equipment and weapons. If the President agrees, the military anticipates…

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Robin Wright writes: In March, I travelled to Afghanistan and the Middle East with General Kenneth (Frank) McKenzie, Jr., the Alabama-born marine who heads Central Command. He has been overseeing the frantic evacuation out of Kabul. During one of several interviews aboard his plane, I asked him, “Do you really think, given the intermarriage, the interweaving of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, that the Taliban is really ever going to be able or willing to restrain Al Qaeda from doing…

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NBC News reports: Local staff members at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul are “deeply disheartened” by U.S. evacuation efforts and have expressed a sense of betrayal and distrust in the American government, according to a State Department diplomatic cable obtained by NBC News. Sent Saturday, the cable said that memos had been sent to Afghan staff at the Embassy on Wednesday, inviting them to head to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. It told them to take food and…

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Jason Linkins writes: “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.… It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” These words, penned by Major General Smedley Butler in 1935, nearly a century before the global war on terrorism began, decades before the notion of a “military-industrial complex” became a glint in Dwight Eisenhower’s imagination, could sum up…

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Christoph Reuter reports: In early July, before the great storm broke over Afghanistan, Kabul was already surrounded by the Taliban. And nowhere were the Islamist fighters closer to the Afghan capital city than on the shores of the Qargha Reservoir, a popular getaway on the western edge of the city. People were saying that the Taliban had gathered in the villages behind the nearby hills. The last frontline, it was said, was on the shore of the reservoir at the…

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