The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"

[blandy]

13 hours ago, Davkaus said:

I guess the aim was that there'd be no need for them to leave at all because the Afghan army would hold the line though, so it all comes down to what the intel was saying about the viability of the Taliban being kept at bay. 

That Trump did a treaty deal with the Taliban says all we need to know there. Wouldn’t have done a deal if the Talibans were in no position to take over. Page IV, item 2 of the agreement basically, without directly saying so, recognises they will be the new government

pdf here https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf

[PussEKatt]

I didnt read that PDF ( too long ) but I thought Trumps plan was civilians out first,then the army ?! 

[StefanAVFC]

20 hours ago, flamingsombrero said:

Posh word removed and some cats > brown people 

Three cheers for the good guys!!

 

[Seat68]

Do not, I repeat do not, look at the **** up of Johnson and Biden. Look at the man who wants to bring animals to the UK. Farthing is quite literally Boris's dead cat. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Seat68

[Awol]

Well this is quite something. The only thing more dangerous than being an enemy of the US is being an ally. Really worth reading the whole Twitter thread:

 

[StefanAVFC]

I've never seen refs lose control of games like I have this season. Ridiculous. 

[Genie]

10 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

I've never seen refs lose control of games like I have this season. Ridiculous. 

Comparing the troubles in Afghanistan to a game is a bit out of order 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[StefanAVFC]

9 minutes ago, Genie said:

Comparing the troubles in Afghanistan to a game is a bit out of order 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow not even close in terms of thread

[bobzy]

15 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

I've never seen refs lose control of games like I have this season. Ridiculous. 

Refs = refugees?

Games = hunger games?

Bit bleak mate  

[BrownsVillan]

Americans miss ISIS-K, kill a bunch of children.
 

 

[Genie]

 

[sne]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

 

That's perfect. Ensures that they will be buying military supplies, spare parts and ammunition from US companies instead of the Russians or Chinese in the coming years.

Shareholder win.

[Davkaus]

5 hours ago, BrownsVillan said:

Americans miss ISIS-K, kill a bunch of children.
 

 

The associates of the victims claim they were innocent. The US claims that they were loading explosives into the car. There were explosions after the missile hit the car from the explosives the occupants had loaded in, according to the US anyway.

Two completely contradictory stories. One could prove their version of events by releasing the video, we'll see if they do.

[Genie]

7 minutes ago, sne said:

That's perfect. Ensures that they will be buying military supplies, spare parts and ammunition from US companies instead of the Russians or Chinese in the coming years.

Shareholder win.

I wonder if it benefits someone somewhere to lump a load of “lost” assets in Afghanistan. 

I’m still shocked they don’t appear to be making any attempt to get any of them back.

[sne]

Elvis has left the building.

 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

The associates of the victims claim they were innocent. The US claims that they were loading explosives into the car. There were explosions after the missile hit the car from the explosives the occupants had loaded in, according to the US anyway.

Two completely contradictory stories. One could prove their version of events by releasing the video, we'll see if they do.

A family says 10 of its members were killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul.

'Hours after a U.S. military drone strike in Kabul on Sunday, Defense Department officials said that it had blown up a vehicle laden with explosives, eliminating a threat to Kabul’s airport from the Islamic State Khorasan group.

But at a family home in Kabul on Monday, survivors and neighbors said the strike had killed 10 people, including seven children, an aid worker for an American charity organization and a contractor with the U.S. military.

Zemari Ahmadi, who worked for the charity organization Nutrition and Education International, was on his way home from work after dropping off colleagues on Sunday evening, according to relatives and colleagues interviewed in Kabul.

As he pulled into the narrow street where he lived with his three brothers and their families, the children, seeing his white Toyota Corolla, ran outside to greet him. Some clambered aboard in the street, others gathered around as he pulled the car into the courtyard of their home.

It was then that they say the drone struck.

At the time of the attack, the Corolla was in a narrow courtyard inside a walled family compound. Its doors were blown out, and its windows shattered.

Mr. Ahmadi and some of the children were killed inside his car; others were fatally wounded in adjacent rooms, family members said. An Afghan official confirmed that three of the dead children were transferred by ambulance from the home on Sunday.

Journalists on the scene for The New York Times were unable to independently verify the family’s account.

Mr. Ahmadi’s daughter Samia, 21, was inside when she was struck by the blast wave. “At first I thought it was the Taliban,” she said. “But the Americans themselves did it.”

Samia said she staggered outside, choking, and saw the bodies of her siblings and relatives. “I saw the whole scene,” she said. “There were burnt pieces of flesh everywhere.”

The Pentagon acknowledged the possibility that Afghan civilians had been killed in the drone strike, but suggested that any civilian deaths resulted from the detonation of explosives in the vehicle that was targeted.

“We’re not in a position to dispute it,” John F. Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesman said Monday about reports on the ground of civilian casualties. He repeated earlier Pentagon statements that the military was investigating the strike on a vehicle two miles from Hamid Karzai International Airport.

“No military on the face of the earth works harder to avoid civilian casualties than the United States military,” Mr. Kirby said. “We take it very, very seriously. And when we know that we have caused innocent life to be lost in the conduct of our operations, we’re transparent about it.”

Among the dead was Samia’s fiancé, Ahmad Naser, 30, a former army officer and contractor with the U.S. military who had come from Herat, in western Afghanistan, in the hopes of being evacuated from Kabul.

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said on Sunday that the U.S. military had carried out a drone strike against an Islamic State Khorasan vehicle planning to attack the airport. The group had claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at the airport on Thursday.

On Monday, Capt. Bill Urban, the spokesman, reaffirmed an earlier statement that the military hit a valid target, an explosives-laden vehicle.

Mr. Ahmadi was a technical engineer for the local office of Nutrition and Education International, an American nonprofit based in Pasadena, Calif. His neighbors and relatives insisted that the engineer and his family members, many of whom had worked for the Afghan security forces, had no connection to any terrorist group.

They provided documents related to his long employment with the American charity, as well as Mr. Naser’s application for a Special Immigrant Visa, based on his service as a guard at Camp Lawton, in Herat.

“He was well respected by his colleagues and compassionate towards the poor and needy,” Steven Kwon, the president of NEI, said of Mr. Ahmadi in an email. He wrote that Mr. Ahmadi had just recently “prepared and delivered soy-based meals to hungry women and children at local refugee camps in Kabul.”'

from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/30/world/afghanistan-news#a-family-says-10-of-its-members-were-killed-in-a-us-drone-strike-in-kabul

A former US military contractor and a guy who worked for a Californian charity handing out food aid to refugees don't sound much like they'd be likely to be IS members to me.

[Davkaus]

Absolutely doesn't, I certainly didn't want to give the impression it was certainly the case, just thought it was worth mentioning there may be more than meets the eye. Whether we'll get details of any investigation is anyone's guess though.

If anyone was daft enough to think that some of the talk coming out of the Taliban suggesting that they might be a bit more moderate might actually be a glimmer of hope for he country...Damn.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/30/afghan-folk-singer-fawad-andarabi-killed-by-taliban-for-playing-music/

Quote

An Afghan folk singer has been executed by the Taliban just days after the Islamic fundamentalist group declared that “music is forbidden in Islam,” according to his family.

Fawad Andarabi’s family told the Associated Press that he was shot dead Friday when enforcers returned to his home after earlier searching it and even drinking tea with him.

“They shot him in the head on the farm,” his son, Jawad, said of the killing in the Andarabi Valley for which he was named.

“He was innocent, a singer who only was entertaining people,” the grieving son said of his dad, who played a bowed lute called a ghichak and sang traditional songs about his country.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the AP that the insurgents would investigate the incident, but had no other details on the killing in the area about 60 miles north of Kabul. 

It came just days after Mujahid told the New York Times that music was being outlawed, just as it had been during the group’s brutal rule from 1996 until 2001.

 

[StefanAVFC]

err isn't the call to prayer music?

[maqroll]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

err isn't the call to prayer music?

Is there a call to prayer in Afghanistan? 

[Mozzavfc]

7 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

err isn't the call to prayer music?

No muslims don't class prayers as music