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Tag: afghanistan

  • JD Vance says Kamala Harris

    JD Vance says Kamala Harris

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    Washington — On Wednesday, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio said Vice President Kamala Harris “can go to hell” over the Biden administration’s handling of the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

    The remark stemmed from an “incident” during former President Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Monday to mark three years since a suicide bombing in Kabul killed 13 service members during the chaotic withdrawal from the country. 

    Trump visited part of the cemetery known as Section 60, where veterans of the post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are laid to rest. While there, an interaction occurred between Trump campaign staff and a cemetery official, according to multiple sources. The dispute appears to be over whether the Trump campaign’s photographer had permission to be there. 

    “Three years ago, 13 brave, innocent Americans died, and they died because Kamala Harris refused to do her job, and there hasn’t been a single investigation or a single firing,” Vance, Trump’s running mate, said in response to a CBS News reporter’s question about the interaction at Arlington National Cemetery while he campaigned in Erie, Pennsylvania. 

    Vance called Harris “disgraceful” and said the narrative should be that “Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up.” 

    “She can go to hell,” he said. 

    Vance later said in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that his comments were justified. 

    “Sometimes I get frustrated and pissed off,” he said, blaming the Harris campaign for “trying to make a massive political issue” out of the incident at Arlington National Cemetery. 

    In a statement Monday marking the bombing, Harris said she “will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families and I will always honor their service and sacrifice.” 

    “As I have said, President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war,” she said. 

    The U.S. withdrawal came nearly 20 years after the war began in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

    The Biden administration and Congress have conducted several investigations into the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. A report from the White House and another from the State Department both partly faulted the Trump administration for the circumstances that contributed to its challenges. 

    Allison Novelo,

    Eleanor Watson,

    Jacob Rosen and

    Olivia Rinaldi

    contributed to this report.

    Caitlin Yilek

    Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.

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  • Taliban bans women from singing or reading out loud in public

    Taliban bans women from singing or reading out loud in public

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    Taliban bans women from singing or reading out loud in public – CBS News


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    The Taliban has banned Afghan women from showing their faces and from singing or reading out loud in public under a strict new set of vice and virtue laws. Here’s what to know.

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  • Trump rebukes Harris and Biden on anniversary of Afghanistan bombing that killed 13 service members

    Trump rebukes Harris and Biden on anniversary of Afghanistan bombing that killed 13 service members

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    DETROIT (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday tied Vice President Kamala Harris to the chaotic Afghanistan War withdrawal on the third anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members, calling the attack a “humiliation.”

    Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, laid wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery in honor of Sgt. Nicole Gee, Staff Sgt. Darin Hoover and Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, who were killed alongside more than 100 Afghans in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He then traveled to Michigan to address the National Guard Association of the United States conference.

    “Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” Trump told an audience of about 4,000, including National Guard members and their families in Detroit.

    Taliban fighters carry rocket launchers as they celebrate the third anniversary of the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan, in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, southwestern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaliq)

    President Joe Biden’s administration was following a withdrawal commitment and timeline that the Trump administration had negotiated with the Taliban in 2020. A 2022 review by a government-appointed special investigator concluded decisions made by both Trump and Biden were the key factors leading to the rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s military and the Taliban takeover.

    In his speech to the National Guard in Detroit, Trump said that leaving Afghanistan was the right thing to do but that the execution was poor. “We were going to do it with dignity and strength,” he said. He called the attack “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.”

    Since Biden ended his reelection bid, Trump has been zeroing in on Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, and her roles in foreign policy decisions. He has specifically highlighted the vice president’s statements that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision on Afghanistan.

    “The voters are going to fire Kamala and Joe on Nov. 5, we hope, and when I take office we will ask for the resignations of every single official,” Trump said in Detroit. “We’ll get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity, to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day. You know, you have to fire people. You have to fire people when they do a bad job.”

    In her own statement marking the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack, Harris said she mourns the 13 U.S. service members who were killed. “My prayers are with their families and loved ones. My heart breaks for their pain and their loss,” she said.

    Harris said she honors and remembers all Americans who served in Afghanistan.

    Donald Trump campaigns in Michigan today, on the third anniversary of a deadly bombing during the US evacuation from Afghanistan. AP correspondent Jennifer King reports.

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

    “As I have said, President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war. Over the past three years, our Administration has demonstrated we can still eliminate terrorists, including the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS, without troops deployed into combat zones,” she said. “I will never hesitate to take whatever action necessary to counter terrorist threats and protect the American people.”

    Biden said in a statement Monday that the 13 Americans who died were “patriots in the highest sense” who “embodied the very best of who we are as a nation: brave, committed, selfless.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “Ever since I became Vice President, I carried a card with me every day that listed the exact number of American service members who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan—including Taylor, Johanny, Nicole, Hunter, Daegan, Humberto, David, Jared, Rylee, Dylan, Kareem, Maxton, and Ryan,” Biden said.

    The relatives of some of the American service members who were killed appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention last month and spoke on Monday in a media call along with Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. They said they are still trying to get answers on how their loved ones died.

    “For them to think that is OK and treat it as another page in a book that they’re just flipping over for the next chapter it saddens me and frightens me all at the same time,” said Alicia Lopez, the mother of Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, who added she has another son serving in the military. “I pray that I don’t get another knock on my door because of the lack of responsibilities this administration has for our military.”

    Asked Monday why Biden and Harris weren’t marking the anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack as Trump did at Arlington National Cemetery, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Trump had been personally invited by the family members and he called it one way to honor the fallen.

    “Another way is to continue to work,” Kirby said. “Maybe not with a lot of fanfare, maybe not with a lot of public attention, maybe not with TV cameras, but to work with might and main every single day to make sure that the families of the fallen and of those who were injured and wounded, not just at Abbey Gate, but over the course of the 20-some odd years that we were in Afghanistan, have the support that they need.”

    Also Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced that Congress will posthumously honor the 13 service members by presenting their families with the Congressional Gold Medal next month. It’s the highest civilian award that Congress can bestow.

    Under Trump, the United States signed a peace agreement with the Taliban that was aimed at ending America’s longest war and bringing U.S. troops home. Biden later pointed to that agreement as he sought to deflect blame for the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan, saying it bound him to withdraw troops and set the stage for the chaos that engulfed the country.

    A Biden administration review of the withdrawal acknowledged that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner, but attributed the delays to the Afghan government and military, and to U.S. military and intelligence community assessments.

    The top two U.S. generals who oversaw the evacuation said the administration inadequately planned for the withdrawal. The nation’s top-ranking military officer at the time, then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, told lawmakers earlier this year he had urged Biden to keep a residual force of 2,500 forces to give backup. Instead, Biden decided to keep a much smaller force of 650 that would be limited to securing the U.S. embassy.

    ___

    Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.

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  • Pakistan’s health ministry confirms a case of mpox but more tests are being done for its variant

    Pakistan’s health ministry confirms a case of mpox but more tests are being done for its variant

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    PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s health ministry said Friday it has identified a case of mpox, but sequencing is being done to determine whether it is a new variant, days after the World Health Organization declared the spread of mpox a global health emergency.

    The case, in a man who had recently returned from a Middle Eastern country, is the first in Pakistan this year but the nature of the variant was yet to be determined. The first case was reported on Thursday by authorities in Sweden.

    The ministry in a statement said the man was from Mardan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

    It said the ministry has directed officials at border crossing points and airports to ensure strict surveillance and collect samples for medical tests if they see symptoms of the disease in any passenger returning from abroad.

    It was unclear which Middle Eastern country the man had visited, and no cases of the new variant have yet been reported in that region. The United Arab Emirates, however, has had 16 confirmed cases of mpox since 2022, according to the WHO. The UAE is particularly affected by transnational outbreaks given its role as a hub connecting East and West with its long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad.

    On Wednesday, the WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures. More than 96% of all cases and deaths have been in Congo.

    The director of public health for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr. Irshad Roghani, said the person infected with mpox in Pakistan has mild symptoms. “Contact tracing of the affected person has been started and samples of more people are being obtained,” he told The Associated Press.

    Roghani said that since 2022, 300 people have been tested in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, of whom two tested positive last year. This is the first case detected this year.

    ——

    This story has been corrected to say that the health ministry says the sequencing of the case is still being done and it is not yet confirmed as the new variant.

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  • Harris Campaign Claims Tim Walz Merely ‘Misspoke’ Amid Controversy Over Stolen Valor

    Harris Campaign Claims Tim Walz Merely ‘Misspoke’ Amid Controversy Over Stolen Valor

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    Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    By Bethany Blankley (The Center Square)

    U.S. House Republicans and military veterans are demanding answers from the Pentagon and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on his military record after several claims have resurfaced. Walz was picked as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate; the two are the presumed Democratic nominees for president and vice president.

    Criticisms of Walz’s military record have existed since 2006 when he first ran for Congress. Republican members of Congress and veterans are again raising concerns, including vice presidential candidate U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq; U.S. House Reps. Jim Banks, R-Ind., Cory Mills, R-FL, Navy and Army veterans, respectively, whose deployments include Afghanistan and Iraq.

    RELATED: Harris, new VP face criticism for handling of crime

    Walz, who served in the Army National Guard for 24 years, claimed in 2018 that his goal was to ban Americans from purchasing “weapons of war that I carried in war,” claiming that he fought in combat. He also claims that in 2005, before his unit deployed to Iraq, he retired from the Guard to run for Congress and his rank was command sergeant major.

    Questions have been raised for years about his deployments. Walz, who served in the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, was deployed in 2003 to Vicenza, Italy, to support Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. He did not see combat in Afghanistan.

    Vance has taken issue with Walz’s military service characterization, saying at a recent Michigan campaign event, “I wonder Tim Walz, when were you ever in war? What was this weapon you carried into war? What bothers me about Tim Walz is this stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you’re not. I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.”

    Similar claims have been made before. In 2018, when Walz was running for governor, retired National Guard leaders posted an open letter on Facebook, saying he “embellished and selectively omitted facts of his military career for years.”

    In 2009, a veteran reportedly confronted Walz’s former congressional staff claiming he violated the Stolen Valor Act of 2006 because of claims he made about Afghanistan when he was never deployed there, according to a video released by the Calvin Coolidge Project.

    RELATED: Biden Administration Borrowed $5 Billion Per Day in Fiscal Year 2024

    In July 2006, veterans sent letters to local news outlets, the Mankato Free Press, archived by Bluestem Prairie News, and the Winona Daily News, claiming Walz was misleading voters about his military service in Afghanistan. Walz published a response in the Winona Daily News stating he never misled anyone and he was proud of his military service.

    Others have pointed to a CSPAN interview with then U.S. Rep. Walz who didn’t appear to clarify that he never actually fought in Afghanistan.

    Since similar concerns have resurfaced, Banks on Thursday sent a letter to Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin requesting official information about Walz’s service record.

    “The American people deserve transparency into the military records of service-members who serve in public office and especially when they represent such service as credentials for public office,” he wrote. “Misrepresentation and deceit intended to mislead the public about their service erode the integrity of our military and impact all Americans who choose to serve.”

    Banks, who chairs the U.S. House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, requested dates of service including when Walz put in for retirement and documentation to support any claim that he was “deployed overseas to Iraq or Afghanistan to serve in combat” or had a military security clearance.

    He also asked for clarification if Walz “falsely claiming to have carried a combat weapon in war constitutes stolen valor.” The 2006 law, amended in 2013, makes it a federal crime for individuals that make fraudulently claims about their military service.

    Mills argues Walz can provide further clarification about his record.

    “Walz should have at least come back and said, ‘I was promoted to Command Sergeant. I never went to the academy, and I was actually demoted back to Master Sergeant,” Mills said in a statement on social media. “But he’s not doing that. This guy’s trying to continue the lie in an effort to try to gain military favor from veterans when the real combat veteran and future Vice President is JD Vance.”

    The Harris campaign on Friday partially addressed the criticism. “Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country – in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way,” a Harris campaign spokesperson told NBC News. “In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke. He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them.”

    The former chaplain of Walz’s field artillery regiment also weighed in, saying, “In our world, to drop out after a WARNORD [warning order] is issued is cowardly, especially for a senior enlisted guy,” retired Capt. Corey Bjertness, now a pastor in North Dakota, told The New York Post. “Running for Congress is not an excuse. I stopped everything and went to war. I left my wife with three teenagers and a 6-year-old and I was gone for 19 months.”

    Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.

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  • Letters: Jake Cave inspires Colorado Rockies fan despite a tough season for the team

    Letters: Jake Cave inspires Colorado Rockies fan despite a tough season for the team

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    Cave inspires Rockies fan despite a tough season for the team

    I’ve been following the Rockies since their beginning in 1993. My favorite player in those first years was Dante Bichette. He was such a clutch power hitter and I loved his coach Don Baylor. Baylor believed in Bichette and they were friends. In 2020 the Rockies signed Connor Joe. He was a cancer survivor who was inspiring. He made each play like it was his last. Connor Joe became my favorite player. I still love both Bichette and Joe and was inspired watching them play.

    In a season where the Rockies are at the bottom of the NL West, I don’t know why but this is my favorite season to watch the Rockies. It shouldn’t be, but I think it has a lot to do with Jake Cave, Ezequiel Tovar, Nolan Jones, Michael Toglia, Charlie Blackmon, Hunter Goodman, Kyle Freeland, Ryan McMahon, Brenton Doyle, and their manager, Bud Black.

    Cave, now my favorite Rockies player of all time, is a real-life Crash Davis with a gray beard and a relentless engine. He is playing each game with desperation as if the Rockies are going to send him back to the minors. He makes me believe the Rockies might completely turn it around for the second half of the season.

    Whatever happens, I thank the current Rockies for entertaining this retired 69-year-old man. You have given the devoted fans eternal hope, and it is riding on a 31-year-old gray beard who has no idea he shouldn’t be playing this well.

    Steven Antonuccio, Pueblo

    Harris is an exciting choice for president

    What a summer for the Democratic Party! Today, I find myself as excited about the 2024 election as I was when Barack Obama ran in 2008. Kamala Harris brings a freshness and energy we sorely need. Discouragingly, I am hearing grumblings from people who say America is “just not ready” to have a black woman as president. I say to those people, you need to check your own biases. Black Americans and women are top leaders in all segments of our society today. Questions around how race, ethnicity and gender factor into ability have been asked and satisfactorily answered over and over since this country was founded. The only relevant question now is whether Vice President Harris has the intelligence, skills, fortitude, morals, values, and drive to lead this country.

    Tamara Bennett, Carbondale

    If you really want to thank me for my service …

    I joined the Navy in 1968, one step ahead of the draft. This was just prior to the lottery system and beer-swigging wise-ass 19-year-old punks with lousy high school transcripts, such as me, were being swept up off the streets of America to participate in our first war fought for no logical reason: Vietnam. I consider myself a draft dodger by joining the Navy. Fortunately for me, the Navy gave me a chance to grow up, become focused, and develop self-discipline without the risk of lead poisoning.

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  • Claim misleads about U.S. deaths in Afghanistan

    Claim misleads about U.S. deaths in Afghanistan

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    A social media post echoed a misleading claim former President Donald Trump made before about no U.S. service member deaths in Afghanistan over an 18-month period.

    A July 2 Instagram post by conservative activist Brigitte Gabriel said, “For 18 months under President Trump, not a single American was harmed in Afghanistan.”

    The Instagram post included a video clip from “The Sage Steele Podcast,” in which U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, told a story about Trump negotiating with Taliban leaders over a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Hunt said Trump threatened a Taliban leader, saying that if he harmed any American, he would kill him, then said, “Do you know for 18 months, not a single American was killed in Afghanistan?”

    Hunt was correct in stating that after Trump and the Taliban reached a deal Feb. 29, 2020, to end the Afghanistan war, no U.S. service members were killed there for 18 months. 

    Gabriel, however, added the words, “under President Trump” and the words “not a single American was harmed” in her caption. Neither statement is accurate. Seven of the months during the stretch were during Joe Biden’s presidency. Also,  Defense Department data shows that four service members died in what it categorized as “non-hostile deaths,” meaning not in combat, and three service members were wounded in combat from March 1, 2020, until Trump left office Jan. 20, 2021. 

    Instagram screenshot

    We contacted Gabriel through her organization Act for America, a group  describing itself as a “grassroots movement dedicated to preserving America’s culture, sovereignty & security.” We received no response.

    The last military service members killed in combat in Afghanistan during Trump’s presidency came Feb. 9, 2020, when two service members died in Nangarhar Province. 

    After that, no U.S. service members were killed in action in Afghanistan until Aug. 26, 2021, when suicide bombers attacked Kabul’s airport, killing 13 U.S. service members during the U.S. evacuation President Joe Biden oversaw.

    So, it’s correct that in an 18-month stretch, no U.S. service members were harmed or died in combat. But Gabriel is incorrect to say Trump was in charge during that period.

    Biden took office Jan. 20, 2021, and there were no U.S. service members killed until the Kabul airport attack in late August that year. That accounts for seven months of the 18-month stretch the Instagram post mentioned.

    Also, the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System data shows that four service members died in what it categorized as “non-hostile deaths,” meaning not in combat, and three service members were wounded in combat from March 1, 2020, until Trump left office Jan. 20, 2021. It’s unclear from this data and our search of news reports whether any U.S. civilians or contractors were killed during this period.

    The Defense Department database gives no specifics about nonhostile deaths. At least two of those four service members died in vehicle accidents, one in July 2020 and one in November 2020. Two others died in what Defense Department news releases called “non-combat-related” incidents.

    Before Trump’s deal with the Taliban, 45 U.S. service members were killed in combat during his presidency, from Jan. 20, 2017, until Feb. 29, 2020. During Biden’s presidency, there were the 13 service members killed in the 2021 Kabul attack and two nonhostile troop deaths in 2024, Defense Department data shows.

    Our ruling

    Gabriel said, “For 18 months under President Trump, not a single American was harmed in Afghanistan.”

    There is no 18-month stretch solely under the Trump administration in which no U.S. service members were killed. There was an 18-month span when no U.S. service member was killed, but Biden oversaw seven of those months. Also, some service members were wounded or died in noncombat deaths during Trump’s final 11 months in office. We rate the claim False.

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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  • Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie says Afghanistan withdrawal was

    Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie says Afghanistan withdrawal was

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    Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie says Afghanistan withdrawal was “one of worst negotiating mistakes” – CBS News


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    Retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East, writes in a new book that the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was negotiated under former President Donald Trump and implemented under President Biden, was “one of the worst negotiating mistakes by the U.S.” Both presidents, McKenzie tells “Face the Nation,” shared a policy objective of leaving Afghanistan, regardless of the consequences.”

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  • Afghan diplomat Zakia Wardak resigns after being accused of smuggling almost $2 million worth of gold into India

    Afghan diplomat Zakia Wardak resigns after being accused of smuggling almost $2 million worth of gold into India

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    New Delhi  —Afghanistan’s top diplomat in India resigned days after she was reportedly caught by airport authorities smuggling nearly $2 million worth of gold into the country. Zakia Wardak, the Afghan Consul-General in India’s financial capital Mumbai, posted a statement on social media announcing her resignation.

    Afghanistan’s embassy in New Delhi shut down in November, more than two years after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul following the collapse of the Western-backed government, leaving Wardak as the country’s most senior representative in India.

    “It is with great regret that I announce my decision to step away from my role at the Consulate and Embassy in India, effective May 5, 2024,” Wardak said Saturday.

    zakia-wardak-afghanistan.jpg
    A file photo posted to her X account in 2018 shows Afghan diplomat Zakia Wardak, who resigned on May 5, 2024 from her role as Afghanistan’s top diplomat in India after reports claimed she had been caught smuggling almost $2 million worth of gold into the country.

    Zakia Wardak/X


    Indian media reports said Wardak was stopped last month by financial intelligence authorities at Mumbai airport on arrival from Dubai, along with her son, carrying about 55 pounds of gold. She was not arrested because of her diplomatic immunity, the reports said, but the gold — worth around $1.9 million — was confiscated.

    Wardak’s resignation leaves thousands of Afghan nationals, including students and businessmen, without any consular representation in India. Most foreign nations, including India, do not officially recognize Afghanistan’s Taliban government, but acknowledge it as the de facto ruling authority.

    In many Afghan missions, diplomats appointed by the former government have refused to cede control of embassy buildings and property to representatives of the Taliban authorities.

    Wardak said in the statement that she had “encountered numerous personal attacks and defamation” over the past year.

    Such incidents “have demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society,” she added, making no explicit reference to the gold allegations.

    The Taliban has asserted full control over around a dozen Afghan embassies abroad — including in Pakistan, China, Turkey and Iran.

    Others operate on a hybrid system, with the ambassador gone but embassy staff still carrying out routine consular work such as issuing visas and other documents.

    Most countries evacuated their missions from Kabul as the Taliban closed in on the Afghan capital in August 2021, although a handful of embassies — including Pakistan, China and Russia — never shut and still have ambassadors in Kabul.

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  • How 2024 election winner could shape international crises

    How 2024 election winner could shape international crises

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    How 2024 election winner could shape international crises – CBS News


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    Conflicts in Israel and Ukraine have taken up a lot of the news cycle in the past months and even years. But how has the U.S.’ focus on these international crises affected politics back home? Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, joins CBS News to discuss.

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  • Video Counters Pentagon Claims That Deaths from Afghan Withdrawal Bombing Solely from Explosion – The Political Insider

    Video Counters Pentagon Claims That Deaths from Afghan Withdrawal Bombing Solely from Explosion – The Political Insider

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    One of the first black eyes for the Biden administration happened just months after he took office. The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan left the U.S. discredited and scarred a generation of veterans.

    Perhaps the most notable event from three years ago was the explosion at Kabul airport. The attack took the lives of 13 U.S. service members and about 170 Afghans.

    Since the attack, there have been congressional hearings and two investigations into what happened. While the Biden administration undoubtedly wishes to close this chapter, a video has questioned assertions made by the U.S. government.

    Caught on camera

    CNN released a report on a video taken by a Marine’s GoPro the day of the bombing at Kabul airport. The video shows copious amounts of gunfire during and after the explosion.

    This video corroborates what military members have been claiming since the attack. Some say that they had come under fire and returned fire. However, the Pentagon has remained steadfast in its claim that no such gunfight occurred.

    The DOD claims that the service members who believe they experienced multiple gunfire events were likely “confused”. In the statements released by the Pentagon, there were only three gunfire engagements.

    The claim is that these three instances of gunfire happened almost at the same time in small bursts from U.S. and U.K. troops as “warning shots.” However, the video obtained and analyzed by CNN paints a very different picture.

    According to the video and the interviews of a dozen anonymous troops, the gunfire was extensive and sustained. One anonymous service member told CNN:

    “It was a mass volume of gunfire.”

    The video shows 11 episodes of gunfire spanning four minutes in total. That’s quite the disparity from three simultaneous small bursts of gunfire.

    RELATED: Vance Compares Today’s Ukraine Talking Points To ‘Propaganda’ Used To Justify Iraq War

    Holes in the story

    Besides the problematic inconsistency of gunfire activity between what the Pentagon claims versus what the video shows, there is an argument to be made that perhaps not everyone who died that day was killed by the explosion. The DOD claims that the three alleged warning shots hit no one.

    Essentially, they argue that everyone who died that day, including the 13 military members and 170 or so Afghans, died due to the explosion. However, a witness to the event claims otherwise.

    The former director of the Wazir Akhbar Khan Hospital in Kabul, Dr. Sayeed Ahmadi, has come forward with information that counters the DOD narrative. Now living in Finland, he feels safe enough to share his recollection of what happened that day.

    RELATED: Biden Sent Secret Shipments Of Long-Range Missiles To Ukraine — Which Were Used Against Russia

    He claims that he removed bullets from wounded Afghans and that about a dozen died from gunshot wounds, not as a result of the explosion. He told CNN:

    “Explosion injuries come with severe injuries and lots of holes in the bodies. But people who were shot had just one or two holes in the chest or head.”

    Dr. Ahmadi goes on to explain the difference between a bullet extraction and a ball bearing extraction, often packed into a suicide bomb:

    “Of course, when you see the bullets, it’s totally different from the ball bearing. Everyone knows if they are a soldier or a doctor.”

    What does the Pentagon have to say to this information?

    Nothing to see here

    As of right now, the DOD is sticking to its story. Dr. Ahmadi’s testimony was never requested, nor were any eyewitness accounts from Afghans that day considered in the investigations.

    When asked why no Afghan witnesses were included public affairs adviser Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick explained “because it’s scope and focus on U.S. operations did not demand it.” Lt. Col Lodewick went on to say that the investigations:

    “…presented no overwhelming need for the pursuit of external Afghan-centric information.”

    Perhaps the real reason that testimony like that from Dr. Ahmadi wasn’t considered is fear of what might be revealed. As if the possibility that the DOD is covering up the fact that American troops may have inadvertently killed Afghan civilians, there is some suspicion that Dr. Ahmadi was intimidated into lying.

    RELATED: Air Force Academy Paid Over $250K to Spy On Cadets, Faculty for ‘Extremism’

    The doctor told CNN that he he received two phone calls after the explosion insisting he stop recording who died from the blast and who died from gunshot wounds. In one of the phone calls, he said:

    “He spoke fluently Dari. He told me, ‘What are you doing, Doctor? You love your life. You love your family. This is not good when you are collecting that data. It would make a big dangerous situation for you. You should stop that as soon as possible.”

    If his allegation is true, the question is, who made that call?

    History repeats itself

    Will the American people, Afghans left behind, veterans of the Forever War, and the families of the 13 fallen ever get the truth about what happened that day? Those who are students of history would likely argue no.

    Memories of the lies surrounding the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman have some wondering if it’s possible the same scenario happened three years ago at Kabul airport. On the CNN report, Congressman Matt Waltz said:

    “I was astounded by the CNN report that just came out showing footage that had never been seen before from a Marine that was there.”

    The congressman went on to ask:

    “…why wasn’t that included in either of the previous two Pentagon investigations?”

    If I were to venture a guess, it would probably be because it would make the DOD and Pentagon “leaders” look bad. With rising tensions in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia, the American people should demand truth and accountability from the DOD.

    Otherwise, American families run the risk of sending their sons and daughters off to more forever wars with the possibility of never knowing the truth behind what happens to them in foreign lands.

    Now is the time to support and share the sources you trust.
    The Political Insider ranks #3 on Feedspot’s “100 Best Political Blogs and Websites.”

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    Kathleen J. Anderson

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  • A message to veterans confronting PTSD

    A message to veterans confronting PTSD

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    A message to veterans confronting PTSD – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Chuck Rotenberry served in Iraq and Afghanistan and returned home with post-traumatic stress disorder. He encouraged veterans confronting PTSD to not give up hope.

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    Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


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  • Nonprofit donates custom home in this East Bay city for Marine injured in Afghanistan

    Nonprofit donates custom home in this East Bay city for Marine injured in Afghanistan

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    BYRON – When Marine Sgt. Kyle Garcia stepped on an improvised explosive device while on patrol in Sangin, Afghanistan, he knew exactly what hit him, but he had no idea how completely his life would change.

    “I knew instantly what happened,” the Marine scout sniper said. “I knew better than to look because I didn’t want to go into shock.”

    The East Bay native, then 23, lost his left leg and severely damaged his right leg in the 2011 blast.

    He would later be fitted with a prosthetic leg and undergo months of physical therapy at a base in Southern California. But transitioning to a new life, often bound to his wheelchair, would prove even more difficult. With nerve damage in his right leg, Garcia experienced weaknesses sometimes called “drop foot,” and once-simple tasks like getting on and off furniture, into the bathtub and climbing stairs became more of a challenge.

    “Most of my problems were wheelchair-related,” the now-35-year-old Garcia said.

    Medically retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia followed by his son Louis, 10, and his wife Crystal Garcia react as they walk in their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 

    Life would soon get a lost easier though for Garcia, his wife Crystal and young son Louis, when he learned he would receive a new adapted custom home in East Contra Costa County through Homes for Our Troops, a national nonprofit that supports severely injured soldiers. He credits friends with the Wounded Warrior Project for encouraging him to apply for a HFOT home.

    On Saturday, the national nonprofit organization gave Garcia and his family something that will change their world: the keys to a mortgage-free, custom home in rural Byron with an open-floor plan that will make getting around the various rooms easy. Because it’s a single story, he will no longer have to make a difficult walk with his prosthesis up the stairs, as he does now in his Oakley rental home.

    The now-medically retired Marine, who grew up in Pinole, chose the Byron location, so he and his wife could be near family and enjoy the large, flat yard.

    “I was definitely excited when I heard (of the house gift), but you don’t want to get your hopes up… so you kind of tried to curb your expectations, because it seems so incredible,” he said.

    J.R. Wilson, president of the Delta Veterans Group, was there with others on Saturday and several weeks before that when he and other volunteers laid down sod and planted trees and bushes to landscape the yard of the rural home. Other volunteers have been building the four-bedroom house for the past year.

    “When I think of these kinds of projects, I always think of the veteran regaining their independence,” Wilson said. “Not only with independence, but with his ability to be a husband, and the father that he wants to be.”

    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, center, along with his wife, Crystal Garcia, left, their son Louis, 10, and Home for Our Troops president and CEO, Tom Landwermeyer, take part in the ribbon cutting ceremony for their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, center, along with his wife, Crystal Garcia, left, their son Louis, 10, and Home for Our Troops president and CEO, Tom Landwermeyer, take part in the ribbon cutting ceremony for their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 

    In the past two decades, the HFOT nonprofit has built and donated more than 375 homes in 45 states, according to Bill Ivey, executive director, who said in the nonprofit’s most recent newsletter that “there are nearly 1,000 more severely injured post-9/11 veterans still in need of the secure and accessible homes they deserve.”

    Garcia said the homes give “veterans their dignity back.”

    His new residence features more than 40 major special adaptations, such as widened doorways for wheelchair access, a roll-in shower and kitchen amenities that include pull-down shelving and lowered countertops. The home will also alleviate the mobility and safety issues associated with a traditional home, including navigating a wheelchair through narrow hallways or over carpets, or reaching for cabinets that are too high.

    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia speaks during a special ceremony honoring Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia speaks during a special ceremony honoring Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 

    Crystal Garcia, in a HFOT nonprofit video about the donation, said she was “excited” that her husband would be able to more easily get around. She secured a moving truck to come the day after they got the keys, so they could move in quickly, Kyle Garcia said.

    The nonprofit is able to donate the home to Garcia thanks to contributions from donors, supporters, and corporate partners, according to a spokesman for HFOT.

    Not surprisingly, the Garcias are grateful for their new home in Byron.

    Having a mortgage-free home “is huge for our family … it’s the No. 1 expense for almost all families,” Garcia said.

    Having completed his bachelor’s degree at San Francisco State and later law school in Missouri – all while still recuperating – Garcia has now begun work as an associate attorney in Pleasanton. With his house worries behind him, he is able to focus his energy on his family.

    “This is going to pretty much allow us to live here in the Bay Area,” he said of his new home. “And hopefully, when the time comes, I can afford to send my son to college on my own.”

    Homes for Our Troops has more than 81 active projects underway nationwide. To find out more on how to get involved or make a donation, visit www.hfotusa.org.

    Armed forces veterans, families and members of the community attend a special ceremony for medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Armed forces veterans, families and members of the community attend a special ceremony for medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
    Home for Our Troops president and CEO, Tom Landwermeyer, left, shakes hands with medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia during a special ceremony honoring Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Home for Our Troops president and CEO, Tom Landwermeyer, left, shakes hands with medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia during a special ceremony honoring Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, center, embraces the Quilt of Valor presented by Joan McClure, left, and her husband Jack McClure, right, during a special ceremony honoring Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, center, embraces the Quilt of Valor presented by Joan McClure, left, and her husband Jack McClure, right, during a special ceremony honoring Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, left, is presented with a folded American flag for his service by Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bill Webber, second from right, and Dennis Sikorski after a special ceremony honoring Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, left, is presented with a folded American flag for his service by Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bill Webber, second from right, and Dennis Sikorski after a special ceremony honoring Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
    Armed forces veterans, families and members of the community attend a special ceremony for medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Armed forces veterans, families and members of the community attend a special ceremony for medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
    Veterans of Foreign Wars color guard stand during the national anthem during a special ceremony honoring Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Veterans of Foreign Wars color guard stand during the national anthem during a special ceremony honoring Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia at his newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
    Louis Garcia, 10, son of medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, looks at the adapted bathroom for his father as the Garcias check their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, bathroom, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Louis Garcia, 10, son of medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, looks at the adapted bathroom for his father as the Garcias check their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, bathroom, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, left, and his wife Crystal Garcia, right, in company of Home for Our Troops president and CEO, Tom Landwermeyer look around their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia, left, and his wife Crystal Garcia, right, in company of Home for Our Troops president and CEO, Tom Landwermeyer look around their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia stands next to a poster featuring his photos before and after he lost his left leg in the line of duty as he and his wife Crystal Garcia and their son Louis, 10, look around their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
    Medical retired Marine Sergeant Kyle Garcia stands next to a poster featuring his photos before and after he lost his left leg in the line of duty as he and his wife Crystal Garcia and their son Louis, 10, look around their newly adapted home donated by the national nonprofit Home for Our Troops in Byron, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Sgt. Garcia lost his left leg and sustained severe damage to his right leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. Their new home comes with more than 40 adaptations, including lower countertops and roll-under sinks, etc. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) 

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    Judith Prieve

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  • Taliban Fast Facts | CNN

    Taliban Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the Taliban, a Sunni Islamist organization operating primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    The group’s aim is to impose its interpretation of Islamic law on Afghanistan and remove foreign influence from the country.

    Taliban, in Pashto, is the plural of Talib, which means student.

    Most members are Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.

    Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada has been the Taliban’s supreme leader since 2016.

    Reclusive leader Mullah Mohammed Omar led the Taliban from the mid-1990s until his death in 2013.

    The exact number of Taliban forces is unknown.

    1979-1989 – The Soviet Union invades and occupies Afghanistan. Afghan resistance fighters, known collectively as mujahedeen, fight back.

    1989-1993 – After the Soviet Union withdraws, fighting among the mujahedeen erupts.

    1994 – The Taliban forms, comprised mostly of students and led by Mullah Mohammed Omar.

    November 1994 – The Taliban take control of the city of Kandahar.

    September 1996 – The capital, Kabul, falls to the Taliban.

    1996-2001 – The group imposes strict Islamic laws on the Afghan people. Women must wear head-to-toe coverings, are not allowed to attend school or work outside the home and are forbidden to travel alone. Television, music and non-Islamic holidays are banned.

    1997 – The Taliban issue an edict renaming Afghanistan the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The country is only officially recognized by three countries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

    1997- Omar forges a relationship with Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, who then moves his base of operations to Kandahar.

    August 1998 – The Taliban capture the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, gaining control of about 90% of Afghanistan.

    October 7, 2001 – Less than a month after terrorists linked to al Qaeda carry out the 9/11 attacks, American and allied forces begin an invasion of Afghanistan called Operation Enduring Freedom.

    December 2001 – The Taliban lose its last major stronghold as Kandahar falls. Hamid Karzai is chosen as interim leader of Afghanistan.

    November 3, 2004 – Karzai is officially elected president of Afghanistan.

    December 2006 – Senior Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani is killed in an airstrike by the United States.

    December 11, 2007 – Allied commanders report that Afghan troops backed by NATO have recaptured the provincial town of Musa Qala from Taliban control.

    October 21, 2008 – Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal confirms that Saudi Arabia hosted talks between Afghan officials and the Taliban in September. It is reported that no agreements were made.

    April 25, 2011 – Hundreds of prisoners escape from a prison in Kandahar by crawling through a tunnel. The Taliban take responsibility for the escape and claim that 541 prisoners escaped, while the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force says the number is 470.

    September 10, 2011 – Two Afghan civilians are killed, and 77 US troops are wounded in a truck bombing at the entrance of Combat Outpost Sayed Abad, an ISAF base in Afghanistan’s Wardak province. The Taliban claim responsibility.

    September 13, 2011 – Taliban militants open fire on the US embassy and ISAF headquarters in central Kabul. Three police officers and one civilian are killed.

    February 27, 2012 – The Taliban claim responsibility for a suicide bombing near the front gate of the ISAF base at the Jalalabad airport in Afghanistan. At least nine people are killed and 12 are wounded in the explosion. The Taliban say the bombing is in retaliation for the burning of Qurans by NATO troops.

    June 18, 2013 – An official political office of the Taliban opens in Doha, Qatar’s capital city. The Taliban claim they hope to improve relations with other countries and head toward a peaceful solution in Afghanistan.

    September 21, 2013 – A Pakistani official announces that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the founding members of the Taliban, has been released from prison. Baradar had been captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2010.

    May 31, 2014 – The United States transfer five Guantánamo Bay detainees to Qatar in exchange for the release of US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. It is believed Bergdahl was being held by the Taliban and the al Qaeda-aligned Haqqani network in Pakistan. The detainees released are Khair Ulla Said Wali Khairkhwa, Mullah Mohammad Fazl, Mullah Norullah Nori, Abdul Haq Wasiq and Mohammad Nabi Omari.

    July 29, 2015 – An Afghan government spokesman says in a news release that Taliban leader Omar died in April 2013 in Pakistan, citing “credible information.” A spokesman for Afghanistan’s intelligence service tells CNN that Omar died in a hospital in Karachi at that time.

    September 28, 2015 – Taliban insurgents seize the main roundabout in the Afghan provincial capital of Kunduz, then free more than 500 inmates at the prison.

    December 21, 2015 – A police official says Taliban forces have taken almost complete control over Sangin, a strategically important city in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

    May 21, 2016 – Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour is killed in an airstrike in Pakistan.

    May 25, 2016 – The Taliban name Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new leader. He is a senior religious cleric from the Taliban’s founding generation.

    January 25, 2017 – The Taliban release an open letter to newly elected US President Donald Trump. The letter calls on Trump to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan.

    April 21, 2017 – The Taliban attack a northern army base in Afghanistan, killing or wounding more than 100 people.

    July 25, 2017 – CNN reports it has exclusive videos that suggest the Taliban have received improved weaponry in Afghanistan that appears to have been supplied by the Russian government. Moscow categorically denies arming the Taliban.

    August 3, 2017 – Taliban and ISIS forces launch a joint attack on a village in northern Afghanistan, killing 50 people, including women and children, local officials say.

    January 27, 2018 – An attacker driving an ambulance packed with explosives detonates them in Kabul, killing 95 people and injuring 191 others, Afghan officials say. The Taliban claim responsibility.

    February 28, 2018 – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says the government is willing to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate political party as part of a potential ceasefire agreement.

    April 12, 2018 – At least 14 people, including a district governor, are killed and at least five are injured in a Taliban attack in Afghanistan’s southeastern Ghazni province.

    June 7, 2018 – In a video message, Ghani announces that Afghan forces have agreed to a ceasefire with the Taliban between June 12 and June 21. The proposed truce coincides with the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, the period during which Muslims celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting.

    June 15-17, 2018 – The three-day-old ceasefire between the Taliban, Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition is marred by two deadly attacks. ISIS, which did not participate in the truce, claims responsibility for a suicide bombing in the Nangarhar province that kills at least 25 people, including Taliban members and civilians. A second suicide bombing is carried out near the Nangarhar governor’s compound, killing at least 18 people and injuring at least 49. There is no immediate claim of responsibility for the second attack.

    August 10, 2018 – The Taliban launch an attack on the strategic Afghan city of Ghazni, south of the capital Kabul, seizing key buildings and trading fire with security forces. At least 16 people are killed and 40 are injured, most are Afghan security forces.

    October 13, 2018 – The Taliban issues a statement announcing that the group met with the US envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, to discuss the conflict in Afghanistan. The United States does not confirm that the meeting occurred.

    November 9, 2018 – In Moscow, Taliban representatives participate in talks with diplomats from Russia, Pakistan, India and other countries, as well as officials from the Afghan government. The United States sends a diplomat from its embassy in Moscow as an observer.

    January 22, 2019 – Authorities say at least 12 members of the Afghan military were killed and another 28 injured when the Taliban carried out a suicide attack on a military base in the central province of Maidan Wardak.

    January 28, 2019 – Officials from the United States and the Taliban announce they have agreed to a framework that could end the war in Afghanistan. The framework for peace would see the Taliban vow to prevent the country from being used as a hub for terrorism in return for a US military withdrawal. An Afghan source close to the negotiations tells CNN that while a ceasefire and US withdrawal were both discussed, neither side came to final conclusions.

    January 30, 2019 – In its quarterly report to the US Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction declares the Taliban expanded its control of territory in 2018 while the Afghan government lost control of territory. In October 2018, the Afghan government controlled just 53.8% of districts in the country, according to the report. The insurgency made gains to control 12.3% of districts while 33.9% of districts were contested.

    February 5-6, 2019 – Talks are held in Moscow between Taliban leaders and politicians from the government of Afghanistan.

    March 12, 2019 – Peace talks between representatives from the United States and the Taliban end without a finalized agreement. Khalilzad, the main American negotiator, says that progress has been made and the talks yielded two draft proposals.

    September 7-8, 2019 – Trump announces that Taliban leaders were to travel to the Unites States for secret peace talks over the weekend but that the meeting has been canceled and he has called off peace talks with the militant group entirely. Trump tweets that he scrapped the meeting after the Taliban took credit for an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed a dozen people, including an American soldier.

    November 28, 2019 – On a surprise trip to Afghanistan for a Thanksgiving visit with US troops, Trump announces that peace talks with the Taliban have restarted.

    February 29, 2020 – The United States and the Taliban sign a historic agreement which sets into motion the potential of a full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. The “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan” outlines a series of commitments from the United States and the Taliban related to troop levels, counterterrorism and the intra-Afghan dialogue aimed at bringing about “a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.”

    August 9, 2020 – Afghanistan’s grand assembly of elders, the consultative Loya Jirga, passes a resolution calling for the release of the last group of some 5,000 Taliban prisoners, paving the way for direct peace talks with the insurgent group. The release of the 400 prisoners is part of the agreement signed by the US and the Taliban in February.

    April 14, 2021 – US President Joe Biden formally announces his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan before September 11, 2021, deeming the prolonged and intractable conflict in Afghanistan no longer aligns with American priorities.

    August 15, 2021 – After the Taliban seize control of every major city across Afghanistan, in just two weeks, they take control of the presidential palace in Kabul. A senior Afghan official and a senior diplomatic source tell CNN that Ghani has left the country.

    August 30, 2021 – The last US military planes leave Afghanistan.

    September 7, 2021 – The Taliban announce the formation of a hardline interim government for Afghanistan. Four men receiving senior positions in the government had previously been detained by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, and were released as part of a prisoner swap for Bergdahl in 2014.

    November 30, 2021 – New research released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) details “the summary execution or enforced disappearance” of 47 former members of the Afghan National Security Forces who had surrendered or were apprehended by Taliban forces between August 15 and October 31. A Taliban deputy spokesman rejects the HRW report, saying that the Taliban established a general amnesty on their first day of power in Afghanistan.

    December 27, 2021 – The Taliban says it has dissolved Afghanistan’s election commission as well as its ministries for peace and parliamentary affairs, further eroding state institutions set up by the country’s previous Western-backed governments.

    February 11, 2022 – Biden signs an executive order allowing $7 billion in frozen assets from Afghanistan’s central bank to eventually be distributed inside the country and to potentially fund litigation brought by families of victims of the September 11 terror attacks. The Taliban has claimed rights to the funds, which include assets like currency and gold, but the United States has declined access to them after Afghanistan’s democratic government fell. The United States has not recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.

    March 23, 2022 – The Taliban prevents girls above the 6th grade in Afghanistan from making their much-anticipated return to school. They are told to stay at home until a school uniform appropriate to Sharia and Afghan customs and culture can be designed, the Taliban-run Bakhtar News Agency reported. The Taliban originally said that schools would open for all students – including girls – after the Afghan new year, which is celebrated on March 21, on the condition that boys and girls were separated either in different schools or by different learning hours.

    November 13, 2022 – The Taliban orders judges in Afghanistan to fully impose their interpretation of Sharia Law, including potential public executions, amputations and flogging, a move experts fear will lead to a further deterioration of human rights in the impoverished country.

    December 20, 2022 – The Taliban government suspends university education for all female students in Afghanistan.

    December 24, 2022 – The Taliban administration orders all local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to stop their female employees from coming to work, according to a letter by the Ministry of Economy sent to all licensed NGOs.

    June 15, 2023 – The United Nations releases a report saying that since re-taking control of the country,the Taliban has committed “egregious systematic violations of women’s rights,” by restricting their access to education and employment and their ability to move freely in society.

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  • Detained Americans Fast Facts | CNN

    Detained Americans Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at some recent cases of foreign governments detaining US citizens. For information about missing Americans, see Robert Levinson Fast Facts or POW/MIA in Iraq and Afghanistan Fast Facts.

    Afghanistan

    Ryan Corbett
    August 2022 – Corbett, a businessman whose family lived in Afghanistan for more than a decade prior to the collapse of the Afghan government, returns to Afghanistan on a 10 day trip. Roughly one week into his visit, he was asked to come in for questioning by the local police. Corbett, his German colleague, and two local staff members were all detained. All but Corbett are eventually released. The Taliban has acknowledged holding Corbett, and he has been designated as wrongfully detained by the US State Department.

    China

    Mark Swidan
    November 13, 2012 – Swidan, a businessman from Texas, is arrested on drug related charges by Chinese Police while in his hotel room in Dongguan.

    2013 – Swidan is tried and pleads not guilty.

    2019 – Convicted of manufacturing and trafficking drugs by the Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court in southern Guangdong province and given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.

    April 13, 2023 – The Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court denies Swidan’s appeal and upholds his death penalty.

    Kai Li
    September 2016 – Kai Li, a naturalized US citizen born in China, is detained while visiting relatives in Shanghai.

    July 2018 – He is sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage following a secret trial held in August 2017.

    Iran

    Karan Vafadari
    December 2016 – Karan Vafadari’s family announces that Karan and his wife, Afarin Niasari, were detained at Tehran airport in July. Vafadari, an Iranian-American, and Niasari, a green-card holder, ran an art gallery in Tehran.

    March 2017 – New charges of “attempting to overthrow the Islamic Republic and recruiting spies through foreign embassies” are brought against Vafadari and Niasari.

    January 2018 – Vafadari is sentenced to 27 years in prison. Niasari is sentenced to 16 years.

    July 2018 – Vafadari and Niasari are reportedly released from prison on bail while they await their appeals court rulings.

    Russia

    Paul Whelan
    December 28, 2018 – Paul Whelan, from Michigan, a retired Marine and corporate security director, is arrested on accusations of spying. His family says he was in Moscow to attend a wedding.

    January 3, 2019 – His lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, tells CNN Whalen has been formally charged with espionage.

    January 22, 2019 – At his pretrial hearing, Whelan is denied bail. Whelan’s attorney Zherebenkov tells CNN that Whelan was found in possession of classified material when he was arrested in Moscow.

    June 15, 2020 – Whelan is convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

    August 8, 2021 – State news agency TASS reports that Whelan has been released from solitary confinement in the Mordovian penal colony where he is being held.

    Evan Gershkovich
    March 30, 2023 – Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, is detained by Russian authorities and accused of spying. The Wall Street Journal rejects the spying allegations.

    April 3, 2023 – The Russian state news agency TASS reports Gershkovich has filed an appeal against his arrest.

    April 7, 2023 – Gershkovich is formally charged with espionage.

    April 10, 2023 – The US State Department officially designates Gershkovich as wrongfully detained by Russia.

    April 18, 2023 – The Moscow City Court denies his appeal to change the terms of his detention. Gershkovich will continue to be held in a pre-trial detention center at the notorious Lefortovo prison until May 29.

    Saudi Arabia

    Walid Fitaihi
    November 2017 – Dual US-Saudi citizen Dr. Walid Fitaihi is detained at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh along with other prominent Saudis, according to his lawyer Howard Cooper. Fitaihi is then transferred to prison.

    July 2019 – Fitaihi is released on bond.

    December 8, 2020 – Fitaihi is sentenced to six years in prison for charges including obtaining US citizenship without permission.

    January 14, 2021 – A Saudi appeals court upholds Fitaihi’s conviction but reduces his sentence to 3.2 years and suspends his remaining prison term. Fitaihi still faces a travel ban and frozen assets.

    Syria

    Austin Tice
    August 2012 – Tice disappears while reporting near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The Syrian government has never acknowledged that they have Tice in their custody.

    September 2012 – A 43-second video emerges online that shows Tice in the captivity of what his family describe as an “unusual group of apparent jihadists.”

    Majd Kamalmaz
    February 2017 – Kamalmaz is detained at a checkpoint in Damascus. The Syrian government has never acknowledged Kamalmaz is in its custody.

    Cuba

    Alan Gross
    December 2009 – Alan Gross is jailed while working as a subcontractor on a US Agency for International Development project aimed at spreading democracy. His actions are deemed illegal by Cuban authorities. He is accused of trying to set up illegal internet connections on the island. Gross says he was trying to help connect the Jewish community to the internet and was not a threat to the government.

    March 12, 2011 – Gross is found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison for crimes against the Cuban state.

    April 11, 2014 – Ends a hunger strike that he launched the previous week in an effort to get the United States and Cuba to resolve his case.

    December 17, 2014 – Gross is released as part of a deal with Cuba that paves the way for a major overhaul in US policy toward the island.

    Egypt

    16 American NGO Employees
    December 2011 – Egyptian authorities carry out 17 raids on the offices of 10 nongovernmental organizations. The Egyptian general prosecutor’s office claims the raids were part of an investigation into allegations the groups had received illegal foreign financing and were operating without a proper license.

    February 5, 2012 – Forty-three people face prosecution in an Egyptian criminal court on charges of illegal foreign funding as part of an ongoing crackdown on NGOs. Among the American defendants is Sam LaHood, International Republican Institute country director and the son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

    February 15, 2012 – The US State Department confirms there are 16 Americans being held, not 19 as the Egyptian government announced.

    February 20, 2012 – South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Arizona Senator John McCain meet with top Egyptian military and political leaders in Cairo.

    March 1, 2012 – Some of the 43 detainees including American, Norwegian, German, Serbian and Palestinian activists leave Cairo after each post two-million Egyptian pounds bail.

    April 20, 2012 – CNN is told Egyptian officials have filed global arrest notices with Interpol for some of the Americans involved in the NGO trial.

    June 4, 2013 – An Egyptian court sentences the NGO workers: 27 workers in absentia to five-year sentences, 11 to one-year suspended jail sentences, and five others to two-year sentences that were not suspended, according to state-run newspaper Al Ahram. Only one American has remained in Egypt to fight the charges, but he also left after the court announced his conviction.

    Iran

    UC-Berkeley Grads
    July 31, 2009 – Three graduates from the University of California at Berkeley, Sarah Shourd of Oakland, California, Shane Bauer, of Emeryville, California, and Joshua Fattal, of Cottage Grove, Oregon, are detained in Iran after hiking along the unmarked Iran-Iraq border in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region.

    August 11, 2009 – Iran sends formal notification to the Swiss ambassador that the three American hikers have been detained. Switzerland represents the United States diplomatic interests in Iran since the United States and Iran do not have diplomatic relations.

    October 2009 – The Iranian government allows a Swiss diplomat to visit the hikers at Evin Prison.

    November 9, 2009 – Iran charges the three with espionage.

    March 9, 2010 – The families of the three detained hikers speak by phone to the hikers for the first time since they were jailed.

    May 20, 2010 – The detainees’ mothers are allowed to visit their children.

    May 21, 2010 – The mothers are allowed a second visit, and the detained hikers speak publicly for the first time at a government-controlled news conference.

    August 5, 2010 – Reports surface that Shourd is being denied medical treatment.

    September 14, 2010 – Shourd is released on humanitarian grounds on $500,000 bail.

    September 19, 2010 – Shourd speaks publicly to the press in New York.

    November 27, 2010 – Two days after Thanksgiving, Fattal and Bauer are allowed to call home for the second time. Each call lasts about five minutes.

    February 6, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer’s trial begins. Shourd has not responded to a court summons to return to stand trial.

    May 4, 2011 – Shourd announces she will not return to Tehran to face espionage charges.

    August 20, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer each receive five years for spying and three years for illegal entry, according to state-run TV. They have 20 days to appeal.

    September 14, 2011 – A Western diplomat tells CNN an Omani official is en route to Tehran to help negotiate the release of Fattal and Bauer. Oman helped secure the release of Shourd in 2010.

    September 21, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer are released from prison on bail of $500,000 each and their sentences are commuted. On September 25, they arrive back in the United States.

    Saeed Abedini
    September 26, 2012 – According to the American Center for Law and Justice, Saeed Abedini, an American Christian pastor who was born in Iran and lives in Idaho, is detained in Iran. The group says that Abedini’s charges stem from his conversion to Christianity from Islam 13 years ago and his activities with home churches in Iran.

    January 2013 – Abedini is sentenced to eight years in prison, on charges of attempting to undermine the Iranian government.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Abedini, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, and Jason Rezaian, in exchange for clemency of seven Iranians imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    Amir Mirzaei Hekmati
    August 2011 – Amir Mirzaei Hekmati travels to Iran to visit relatives and gets detained by authorities, according to his family. His arrest isn’t made public for months.

    December 17, 2011 – Iran’s Intelligence Ministry claims to have arrested an Iranian-American working as a CIA agent, according to state-run Press TV.

    December 18, 2011 – Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency broadcasts a video in which a young man says his name is Hekmati, and that he joined the US Marine Corps and worked with Iraqi officers.

    December 19, 2011 – The US State Department confirms the identity of the man detained in Iran and calls for his immediate release.

    December 20, 2011 – Hekmati’s family says that he was arrested in August while visiting relatives in Iran. The family asserts that they remained quiet about the arrest at the urging of Iranian officials who promised his release.

    December 27, 2011 – Hekmati’s trial begins in Iran. Prosecutors accuse Hekmati of entering Iran with the intention of infiltrating the country’s intelligence system in order to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorist activities, according to the Fars news agency.

    January 9, 2012 – An Iranian news agency reports that Hekmati is convicted of “working for an enemy country,” as well as membership in the CIA and “efforts to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorism.” He is sentenced to death.

    March 5, 2012 – An Iranian court dismisses a lower court’s death sentence for Hekmati and orders a retrial. He remains in prison.

    September 2013 – In a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, Hekmati says that his confession was obtained under duress.

    April 11, 2014 – Hekmati’s sister tells CNN that Hekmati has been convicted in Iran by a secret court of “practical collaboration with the US government” and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Hekmati, Abedini, and Jason Rezaian, in exchange for clemency of seven Iranians indicted or imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    Jason Rezaian
    July 24, 2014 – The Washington Post reports that its Tehran correspondent and Bureau Chief Jason Rezaian, his wife Yeganeh Salehi and two freelance journalists were detained on July 22, 2014. An Iranian official confirmed to CNN that the group is being held by authorities.

    July 29, 2014 – Iran releases one of three people detained alongside Rezaian, a source close to the family of the released detainee tells CNN. The released detainee is the husband of an Iranian-American photojournalist who remains in custody with Rezaian and his wife, according to the source.

    August 20, 2014 – The Washington Post reports the photojournalist detained with Rezaian in July has been released. At her family’s request, the Post declines to publish her name.

    October 6, 2014 – According to the Washington Post, Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Salehi, has been released on bail.

    December 6, 2014 – During a 10-hour court session in Tehran, Rezaian is officially charged with unspecified crimes, according to the newspaper.

    April 20, 2015 – According the Washington Post, Rezaian is being charged with espionage and other serious crimes including “collaborating with a hostile government” and “propaganda against the establishment.”

    October 11, 2015 – Iran’s state media reports that Rezaian has been found guilty, but no details are provided about his conviction or his sentence. His trial reportedly took place between May and August.

    November 22, 2015 – An Iranian court sentences Rezaian to prison. The length of the sentence is not specified.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Rezaian, Hekmati, and Abedini, in exchange for the clemency of seven Iranians indicted or imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    May 1, 2018 – Joins CNN as a global affairs analyst.

    Reza “Robin” Shahini
    July 11, 2016 – San Diego resident Reza “Robin” Shahini is arrested while visiting family in Gorgan, Iran. Shahini is a dual US-Iranian citizen.

    October 2016 – Shahini is sentenced to 18 years in prison.

    February 15, 2017 – Goes on a hunger strike to protest his sentence.

    April 3, 2017 – The Center for Human Rights in Iran says Shahini has been released on bail while he awaits the ruling of the appeals court.

    July 2018 – A civil lawsuit filed against the Iranian government on Shahini’s behalf indicates that Shahini has returned to the United States.

    Xiyue Wang
    July 16, 2017 – The semi-official news agency Fars News, citing a video statement from Iranian judicial spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejheie, reports that a US citizen has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of spying. Princeton University identifies the man as Chinese-born Xiyue Wang, an American citizen and graduate student in history. According to a university statement, Wang was arrested in Iran last summer while doing scholarly research in connection with his Ph.D. dissertation.

    December 7, 2019 – The White House announces that Wang has been released and is returning to the United States. Iran released Wang in a prisoner swap, in coordination with the United States freeing an Iranian scientist named Massoud Soleimani.

    Michael White
    January 8, 2019 – Michael White’s mother, Joanne White, tells CNN she reported him missing when he failed to return to work in California in July, after traveling to Iran to visit his girlfriend.

    January 9, 2019 – Bahram Ghasemi, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, says White “was arrested in the city of Mashhad a while ago, and within a few days after his arrest the US government was informed of the arrest through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.” Ghasemi denies allegations that White, a US Navy veteran, has been mistreated in prison.

    March 2019 – White is handed a 13-year prison sentence on charges of insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and for publicly posting private images, according to his attorney Mark Zaid.

    March 19, 2020 – White is released into the custody of the Swiss Embassy on medical furlough. One condition of his release is that he must stay in Iran.

    June 4, 2020 – White is released, according to White’s mother and a person familiar with the negotiations.

    Baquer and Siamak Namazi
    October 2015 – Siamak Namazi, a Dubai-based businessman with dual US and Iranian citizenship, is detained while visiting relatives in Tehran.

    February 2016 – Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF official and father of Siamak Namazi, is detained, his wife Effie Namazi says on Facebook. He is an Iranian-American.

    October 2016 – The men are sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $4.8 million, according to Iran’s official news channel IRINN. Iran officials say five people were convicted and sentenced for “cooperating with Iran’s enemies,” a government euphemism that usually implies cooperating with the United States.

    January 28, 2018 – Baquer Namazi is granted a four-day leave by the Iranian government, after being discharged from an Iranian hospital. Namazi’s family say the 81-year-old was rushed to the hospital on January 15 after a severe drop in his blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat and serious depletion of energy. This was the fourth time Namazi had been transferred to a hospital in the last year. In September, he underwent emergency heart surgery to install a pacemaker.

    February 2018 – Baquer Namazi is released on temporary medical furlough.

    February 2020 – Iran’s Revolutionary Court commutes Baquer Namazi’s sentence to time served and the travel ban on him is lifted.

    May 2020 – According to the family, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) places a new travel ban on Baquer Namazi, preventing him from leaving the country.

    October 26, 2021 – Baquer Namazi undergoes surgery to clear a “life-threatening blockage in one of the main arteries to his brain, which was discovered late last month,” his lawyer says in a statement.

    October 1, 2022 – Baquer Namazi is released from detention and is permitted to leave Iran “to seek medical treatment abroad,” according to a statement from UN Secretary General spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

    March 9, 2023 – Siamak Namazi makes a plea to President Joe Biden to put the “liberty of innocent Americans above politics” and ramp up efforts to secure his release, in an interview with CNN from inside Iran’s Evin prison.

    September 18, 2023 – Siamak Namazi is freed, along with four other Americans as part of a wider deal that includes the United States unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.

    North Korea

    Kenneth Bae
    December 11, 2012 – US officials confirm that American citizen Kenneth Bae has been detained in North Korea for over a month.

    April 30, 2013 – North Korea’s Supreme Court sentences Bae to 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts” against the country.

    October 11, 2013 – Bae meets with his mother in North Korea.

    January 20, 2014 – A statement is released in which Bae says that he had committed a “serious crime” against North Korea. Any statement made by Bae in captivity is sanctioned by the North Korean government. The country has a long history of forcing false confessions.

    February 7, 2014 – The State Department announces that Bae has been moved from a hospital to a labor camp.

    November 8, 2014 – The State Department announces that Bae and Matthew Miller have been released and are on their way home.

    Jeffrey Fowle
    June 6, 2014 – North Korea announces it has detained US citizen Jeffrey Edward Fowle, who entered the country as a tourist in April. Fowle was part of a tour group and was detained in mid-May after leaving a bible in a restaurant.

    June 30, 2014 – North Korea says that it plans to prosecute Fowle and another detained American tourist, Matthew Miller, accusing them of “perpetrating hostile acts.”

    October 21, 2014 – A senior State Department official tells CNN that Fowle has been released and is on his way home.

    Aijalon Gomes
    January 25, 2010 – Aijalon Mahli Gomes, of Boston, is detained in North Korea after crossing into the country illegally from China.

    April 7, 2010 – He is sentenced to eight years of hard labor and ordered to pay a fine of 70 million North Korean won or approximately $600,000.

    July 10, 2010 – Gomes is hospitalized after attempting to commit suicide.

    August 25-27, 2010 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in North Korea, with hopes of negotiating for Gomes’ release.

    August 27, 2010 – Carter and Gomes leave Pyongyang after Gomes is granted amnesty for humanitarian purposes.

    Kim Dong Chul
    October 2015 – Kim Dong Chul, a naturalized American citizen, is taken into custody after allegedly meeting a source to obtain a USB stick and camera used to gather military secrets. In January 2016, Kim is given permission to speak with CNN by North Korean officials and asks that the United States or South Korea rescue him.

    March 25, 2016 – A North Korean official tells CNN that Kim has confessed to espionage charges.

    April 29, 2016 – A North Korean official tells CNN that Kim has been sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for subversion and espionage.

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak-song and Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Kim Hak-song
    May 7, 2017 – The state-run Korean Central News Agency reports that US citizen Kim Hak-song was detained in North Korea on May 6 on suspicion of “hostile acts” against the regime. The regime describes Kim as “a man who was doing business in relation to the operation of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.”

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Kim Hak-song, Kim Dong Chul and Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Kim Sang Duk
    April 22, 2017 – US citizen Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, is detained by authorities at Pyongyang International Airport for unknown reasons. Kim taught for several weeks at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

    May 3, 2017 – State-run Korean Central News Agency reports that Kim is accused of attempting to overthrow the government.

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Tony Kim, Kim Hak-song and Kim Dong Chul appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Euna Lee and Laura Ling
    March 2009 – Journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling are arrested while reporting from the border between North Korea and China for California-based Current Media.

    June 4, 2009 – They are sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign.

    August 4, 2009 – Former US President Bill Clinton travels to Pyongyang on a private humanitarian mission to help secure their release.

    August 5, 2009 – Lee and Ling are pardoned and released.

    Matthew Miller
    April 25, 2014 – North Korea’s news agency reports that Matthew Todd Miller was taken into custody on April 10. According to KCNA, Miller entered North Korea seeking asylum and tour up his tourist visa.

    June 30, 2014 – North Korea says that it plans to prosecute Miller and another detained American tourist, Jeffrey Fowle, accusing them of “perpetrating hostile acts.”

    September 14, 2014 – According to state-run media, Miller is convicted of committing “acts hostile” to North Korea and sentenced to six years of hard labor.

    November 8, 2014 – The State Department announces Miller and Kenneth Bae have been released and are on their way home.

    Merrill Newman
    October 26, 2013 – Merrill Newman of Palo Alto, California, is detained in North Korea, according to his family. Just minutes before his plane is to depart, Newman is removed from the flight by North Korean authorities, his family says.

    November 22, 2013 – The US State Department says North Korea has confirmed to Swedish diplomats that it is holding an American citizen. The State Department has declined to confirm the identity of the citizen, citing privacy issues, but the family of Newman says the Korean War veteran and retired financial consultant has been detained since October.

    November 30, 2013 – KCNA reports Newman issued an apology to the people of North Korea, “After I killed so many civilians and (North Korean) soldiers and destroyed strategic objects in the DPRK during the Korean War, I committed indelible offensive acts against the DPRK government and Korean people.” His statement ends: “If I go back to (the) USA, I will tell the true features of the DPRK and the life the Korean people are leading.”

    December 7, 2013 – Newman returns to the United States, arriving at San Francisco International Airport. North Korea’s state news agency reports Newman was released for “humanitarian” reasons.

    Eddie Yong Su Jun
    April 14, 2011 – The KCNA reports that US citizen Eddie Yong Su Jun was arrested in November 2010 and has been under investigation for committing a crime against North Korea. No details are provided on the alleged crime.

    May 27, 2011 – Following a visit from the US delegation which includes the special envoy for North Korean human rights, Robert King, and the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Jon Brause, to North Korea, Yong Su Jun is released.

    Otto Frederick Warmbier
    January 2, 2016 – Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia college student, is detained in North Korea after being accused of a “hostile act” against the government.

    February 29, 2016 – The North Korean government releases a video of Warmbier apologizing for committing, in his own words, “the crime of taking down a political slogan from the staff holding area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel.” It is not known if Warmbier was forced to speak.

    March 16, 2016 – Warmbier is sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state, a North Korean official tells CNN.

    June 13, 2017 – Warmbier is transported back to the United States via medevac flight to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. There, doctors say that he has suffered severe brain damage. Doctors say Warmbier shows no current signs of botulism, which North Korean officials claim he contracted after his trial.

    June 19, 2017 – Warmbier’s family issues a statement that he has died.

    April 26, 2018 – Warmbier’s parents file a wrongful death lawsuit against the North Korean government charging that the country’s regime tortured and killed their son, according to lawyers for the family.

    December 24, 2018 – A federal judge in Washington awards Warmbier’s parents more than half a billion dollars in the wrongful death suit against the North Korean government. North Korea did not respond to the lawsuit – the opinion was rendered as a so-called “default judgment” – and the country has no free assets in the US for which the family could make a claim.

    Russia

    Trevor Reed
    2019 – While visiting a longtime girlfriend, Trevor Reed is taken into custody after a night of heavy drinking according to state-run news agency TASS and Reed’s family. Police tell state-run news agency RIA-Novosti that Reed was involved in an altercation with two women and a police unit that arrived at the scene following complaints of a disturbance. Police allege Reed resisted arrest, attacked the driver, hit another policeman, caused the car to swerve by grabbing the wheel and created a hazardous situation on the road, RIA stated.

    July 30, 2020 – Reed is sentenced to nine years in prison for endangering “life and health” of Russian police officers.

    April 1, 2021 – The parents of Reed reveal that their son served as a Marine presidential guard under the Obama administration – a fact they believe led Russia to target him.

    April 27, 2022 – Reed is released in a prisoner swap.

    June 14, 2022 – Reed tells CNN that he has filed a petition with the United Nations (UN), declaring that Russia violated international law with his detention and poor treatment.

    Brittney Griner
    February 17, 2022 – Two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and WBNA star Brittney Griner is taken into custody following a customs screening at Sheremetyevo Airport. Russian authorities said Griner had cannabis oil in her luggage and accused her of smuggling significant amounts of a narcotic substance, an offense the Russian government says is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

    July 7, 2022 – Griner pleads guilty to drug charges in a Russian court.

    August 4, 2022 – Griner is found guilty of drug smuggling with criminal intent and sentenced by a Russian court to 9 years of jail time with a fine of one million rubles (roughly $16,400).

    October 25, 2022 – At an appeal hearing, a Russian judge leaves Griner’s verdict in place, upholding her conviction on drug smuggling charges and reducing only slightly her nine-year prison sentence.

    November 9, 2022 – Griner’s attorney tells CNN she is being moved to a Russian penal colony where she is due to serve the remainder of her sentence.

    December 8, 2022 – US President Biden announces that Griner has been released from Russian detention and is on her way home.

    Turkey

    Serkan Golge
    July 2016 – While on vacation in Turkey, Serkan Golge is arrested and accused of having links to the Gulenist movement. Golge is a 37-year-old NASA physicist who holds dual Turkish-US citizenship.

    February 8, 2018 – Golge is sentenced to 7.5 years in prison.

    September 2018 – A Turkish court reduces Golge’s prison sentence to five years.

    May 29, 2019 – The State Department announces that Golge has been released.

    Andrew Brunson
    October 2016 – Andrew Brunson, a North Carolina native, is arrested in Izmir on Turkey’s Aegean coast, where he is pastor at the Izmir Resurrection Church. Brunson, an evangelical Presbyterian pastor, is later charged with plotting to overthrow the Turkish government, disrupting the constitutional order and espionage.

    March 2018 – A formal indictment charges Brunson with espionage and having links to terrorist organizations.

    October 12, 2018 – Brunson is sentenced to three years and one month in prison but is released based on time served.

    Venezuela

    Timothy Hallett Tracy
    April 24, 2013 – Timothy Hallett Tracy, of Los Angeles, is arrested at the Caracas airport, according to Reporters Without Borders. Tracy traveled to Venezuela to make a documentary about the political division gripping the country.

    April 25, 2013 – In a televised address, newly elected President Nicolas Maduro says he ordered the arrest of Tracy for “financing violent groups.”

    April 27, 2013 – Tracy is formally charged with conspiracy, association for criminal purposes and use of a false document.

    June 5, 2013 – Tracy is released from prison and expelled from Venezuela.

    Joshua Holt
    May 26, 2018 – Joshua Holt and his Venezuelan wife, Thamara Holt, are released by Venezuela. The two had been imprisoned there since 2016. The American traveled to Venezuela to marry Thamara in 2016, and shortly afterward was accused by the Venezuelan government of stockpiling weapons and attempting to destabilize the government. He was held for almost two years with no trial.

    “Citgo 6”

    November 2017 – After arriving in Caracas, Venezuela, for an impromptu business meeting, Tomeu Vadell and five other Citgo executives – Gustavo Cardenas, Jorge Toledo, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano and Jose Angel Pereira – are arrested and detained on embezzlement and corruption charges. Citgo is the US subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil and natural gas company PDVSA. Five of the six men are US citizens; one is a US legal permanent resident.

    December 2019 – The “Citgo 6” are transferred from the detention facility, where they have been held without trial for more than two years, to house arrest.

    February 5, 2020 – They are moved from house arrest into prison, hours after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido met with US President Donald Trump

    July 30, 2020 – Two of the men – Cárdenas and Toledo – are released on house arrest after a humanitarian visit to Caracas by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and a team of non-government negotiators.

    November 27, 2020 – The six oil executives are found guilty and are given sentences between 8 to 13 years in prison.

    April 30, 2021 – The men are released from prison to house arrest.

    October 16, 2021 – The “Citgo 6,” all under house arrest, are picked up by the country’s intelligence service SEBIN, just hours after the extradition of Alex Saab, a Colombian financier close to Maduro.

    March 8, 2022 – Cardenas is one of two detainees released from prison. The other, Jorge Alberto Fernandez, a Cuban-US dual citizen detained in Venezuela since February 2021, was accused of terrorism for carrying a small domestic drone. The releases take place after a quiet trip to Caracas by a US government delegation.

    October 1, 2022 – US President Biden announces the release and return of Toledo, Vadell, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano, and Pereira.

    Matthew Heath

    September 2020 – Is arrested and charged with terrorism in Venezuela.

    June 20, 2022 – Family of Heath state that he has attempted suicide. “We are aware of reports that a US citizen was hospitalized in Venezuela,” a State Department spokesperson says. “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”

    October 1, 2022 – US President Biden announces the release and return of Heath.

    Airan Berry and Luke Denman

    May 4, 2020 – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says two American “mercenaries” have been apprehended after a failed coup attempt to capture and remove him. Madura identifies the captured Americans as Luke Denman, 34, and Airan Berry, 41. On state television, Maduro brandishes what he claims are the US passports and driver’s licenses of the two men, along with what he says are their ID cards for Silvercorp, a Florida-based security services company.

    May 5, 2020 – Denman appears on Venezuelan state TV. He is shown looking directly at the camera recounting his role in “helping Venezuelans take back control of their country.”

    August 7, 2020 – Prosecutors announce that Berry and Denman have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

    December 20, 2023 – It is announced that the US has reached an agreement to secure the release of 10 Americans, including Berry and Denman, held in Venezuela.

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  • Jay Leno files for conservatorship for wife Mavis who has dementia

    Jay Leno files for conservatorship for wife Mavis who has dementia

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    Comedian Jay Leno is seeking to become conservator over his wife Mavis Leno’s affairs because she has dementia.

    Leno filed court documents Friday to ask a family court judge to grant the conservatorship so he can structure a living trust and other estate plans to make sure that his 77-year-old wife has “managed assets sufficient to provide for her care” should he die before her, according to a copy of the petition filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

    “Unfortunately, Mavis has been progressively losing capacity and orientation to space and time for several years,” the petition said. “Jay is fully capable of continuing support for Mavis’s physical and financial needs, as he has throughout their marriage.”

    The filing said that her “current condition renders her incapable of executing the estate plan.” The court documents said she was being treated for “dementia and mood disorder.”

    The couple has been married 43 years.

    Leno, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on Saturday.

    Jay Leno on the set of the game show “You Bet Your Life” in Pacoima in 2021.

    (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

    It was unclear when Mavis Leno was first diagnosed with the disease, but a doctor’s report from November, filed as part of the court proceedings, said she suffered with impairments to her memory, ability to concentrate and use of reason.

    The documents said a conservatorship was needed to allow Jay Leno to execute estate plans, “which will provide for Mavis and Mavis’s brother [who is] her sole living heir aside from Jay.” Leno, who is 73, and Mavis Leno do not have children. They live in Beverly Hills.

    “Jay Leno has always handled the couple’s finances through the term of their 43-year marriage, and will continue to do so until his passing,” the petition said.

    TMZ first reported the conservatorship petition.

    When he was the popular host of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” which ran on NBC for about 20 years, Jay Leno would frequently and lovingly mention Mavis.

    Throughout their marriage, Mavis Leno independently pursued her own progressive causes, including fighting a proposed California ballot proposition against affirmative action in the mid-1990s.

    She was a board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation and chairwoman of its Campaign for Afghan Women and Girls to ensure that “the women and girls of Afghanistan are not forgotten,” according to the group’s website. The foundation’s campaign for Afghan women was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

    Shortly after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, Mavis and Jay Leno donated $100,000 as seed money for the Feminist Majority Foundation’s global women’s rights program.

    Jay Leno

    Jay Leno at NBCUniversal’s Summer TCA Tour in Beverly Hills in 2015.

    (Richard Shotwell / Invision / Associated Press)

    “She is someone with a strong sense of purpose, compassion and curiosity,” author Sue Smalley wrote about a decade ago in the Los Angeles Times after interviewing Mavis Leno and her famous husband. “She arrives first, on time [and] doesn’t need hair or makeup.”

    The couple met at L.A.’s famed Comedy Store in 1976.

    “I always had this idea that I would never get married,” she told People magazine in a 1987 interview. “But with Jay, I began to realize that this was the first time I was ever with someone where I had a perfect, calm sense of having arrived at my destination.”

    Separately, she described meeting Leno in an interview with The Times.

    “It was in January. … I thought, ‘Holy s–t! That comedian is gorgeous!” Mavis Leno recalled in a 2014 interview, saying friends had encouraged her to “ ‘hang out at the Comedy Store and the Improv — you’ll meet people who can give you jobs.’ ”

    “The first time I went, they sat us front row center. That means you’re this far from the comic. And there was Jay,” she said.

    Later that evening, she went to the bathroom, which was near an area where the comedians hung out between their sets.

    “When I came out of the bathroom, he said, ‘Are you that girl in front?’ ” Mavis Leno recalled. “I said, ‘Yes, that was me.’ ”

    Staff writer Stacy Perman contributed to this report.

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    Meg James

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  • Millionaire Russian businessman & wife feared dead after jet slams into mountain

    Millionaire Russian businessman & wife feared dead after jet slams into mountain

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    A WEALTHY Russian couple are feared dead after a jet slammed into a mountain in Afghanistan.

    The wife of millionaire entrepreneur Anatoly Evsyukov had become seriously ill on a luxury holiday in Thailand and was being flown back to Russia for treatment on the chartered aircraft.

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    Russian millionaire Anatoly Evsyukov is believed to be one of the victims of the fatal airplane crash in AfghanistanCredit: East2West
    He was accompanied by his wife Anna Evsyukova, who fell ill whilst on Holiday in Thailand

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    He was accompanied by his wife Anna Evsyukova, who fell ill whilst on Holiday in ThailandCredit: East2West
    The suspected site of Falcon plane crash in Afghanistan that left six dead

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    The suspected site of Falcon plane crash in Afghanistan that left six deadCredit: East2West

    Evsyukov had been decorated by Vladimir Putin’s regional governor for “valiant” work building the economy in Rostov region.

    He accompanied his wife Anna Evsyukova on the flight after she developed a mystery infection and needed ventilator treatment.

    Evsyukov chartered a medical evacuation plane to move her from a hospital in Pattaya to fly back to Moscow. 

    The plane left Thailand on Saturday and refuelled in India. 

    “Over Afghanistan, the pilots reported problems with the engines and fuel,” said Shot media in Russia. 

    “The plane crashed into the mountains [in Afghanistan].”

    Their son Vitali, 41, was not permitted on the small executive air ambulance as only one accompanying passenger was allowed. 

    He flew on a scheduled flight to Moscow, learning of the horrific crash after he landed. 

    Another victim, Arkady Grachev, was reported to be the ex-husband of Ekaterina Agapova, the head of the company which owned the plane. 

    The couple shared a child and were business partners. 

    The Falcon 10 plane registered in Russia crashed into the mountains in Afghanistan, said reports on Sunday.

    Russian state and independent media highlighted footage purporting to show the crash site.

    Two Russian passengers – one male, one female – were aboard the plane, along with four crew members, it was reported.

    It is feared that all six have been killed. 

    The aircraft is believed to have been operating as an air ambulance, it is believed. 

    Two of the crew were paramedics. 

    Those on board were named by AviaSpotter Telegram channel as  Anatoly Evsyukov and Anna Evsyukova, along with the crew named as Dmitry Belyakov, Arkady Grachev, Igor Syvorotkin and  Pavel Popov.

    One version said the crew had alerted air traffic control that they were running low on fuel and both engines subsequently failed. 

    The aircraft is registered in Russia, according to the country’s Federal Air Transport Agency.

    It was said to belong to ATLETIK-GRUPP LLC, based in Lyubertsy, Moscow region, and a private individual.

    It crashed in the mountainous Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan.

    Shot media in Russia said the plane reported a fuel problem at 7.05pm local time on Saturday and was seeking to land in Tajikistan on an unscheduled stop.

    One engine failed at 7.19pm and the other ten minutes later. 

    The plane disappeared from radar at about 7.30pm local time, 35 miles from Kulob airport in Tajikistan.

    The plane was operating a charter ambulance flight on the route Gaya (India) – Tashkent (Uzbekistan) – Zhukovsky (Moscow, Russia), according to the owning company.

    The head of the firm Ekaterina Agapova said: “Nothing is known yet, now I’m trying to understand the situation and understand what happened. There is no confirmed data yet.”

    The footage purportedly shows smoke rising from the site at least 12 hours after the crash, which would have been in darkness.

    The crash appears a first since Russian planes were subject to sanctions of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

    This has caused multiple emergency landings due to lack of spare parts and maintenance involving Western suppliers. 

    However it is unclear that the sanctions would have been imposed on an air ambulance. 

    This is reported to be the ninth incident with a Russian plane since the beginning of the year and the eighth to occur during a flight in the last nine days.

    India’s civil aviation authority said that the plane crash was not a scheduled commercial flight or an Indian chartered aircraft and that “more details are awaited.”

    The Falcon 10 air ambulance jet was reportedly ‘running out of fuel’

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    The Falcon 10 air ambulance jet was reportedly ‘running out of fuel’Credit: East2West
    Anatoly Evsyukov (right) with son Vitali, 41, who was not allowed on the stricken jet

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    Anatoly Evsyukov (right) with son Vitali, 41, who was not allowed on the stricken jetCredit: East2West

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    Juliana Cruz Lima

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  • The displaced Afghans making gruelling journeys to survive

    The displaced Afghans making gruelling journeys to survive

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    The barren desert plain among the mountains of eastern Afghanistan is filled with hundreds of thousands of people.

    Some live in tents. Others live out in the open, among the piles of the few belongings they managed to take as they were forced from neighbouring Pakistan.

    The sprawling camp of people returning to Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing is the latest facet of Afghans’ long, painful search for a stable home.

    More than 40 years of war, violence and poverty in Afghanistan have created one of the world’s most uprooted populations.

    Some 6 million Afghans are refugees outside the country. Another 3.5 million people are displaced within the country of 40 million, driven from their homes by war, earthquakes, drought or resources that are being depleted.

    Pakistan’s decision earlier this year to deport undocumented Afghans has struck them hard.

    Many Afghans have lived for decades in Pakistan, driven there by successive wars at home. When the order was announced, hundreds of thousands feared arrest and fled back to Afghanistan. Often, Pakistani authorities prevented them from taking anything with them, they say.

    Their first stop has been the camp in Torkham, where they might spend days or weeks before Taliban officials send them to a camp elsewhere.

    The expulsions from Pakistan have swelled the already large numbers of Afghans who are trying to migrate to Iran, hoping to find work.

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  • Migration is derailing leaders from Biden to Macron. Who’s next?

    Migration is derailing leaders from Biden to Macron. Who’s next?

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    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration. 

    In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024. 

    “There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”

    With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical. 

    Who will be next? 

    Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom 

    In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration. 

    U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Dover on June 5, 2023 in Dover, England | Pool photo by Yui Mok/WPA via Getty Images

    Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.

    Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go. 

    Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next. 

    Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.

    Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.

    Emmanuel Macron, France

    The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week. 

    French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 21, 2023 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion. 

    Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.

    Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers. 

    If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June. 

    But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.

    Joe Biden, United States   

    The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform. 

    U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on July 15, 2019 | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns. 

    Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected. 

    The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.

    New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.

    The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday. 

    Olaf Scholz, Germany

    Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.

    The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds. 

    The inability to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images

    The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.

    Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls. 

    Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats. 

    The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.

    The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.

    Karl Nehammer, Austria 

    Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders. 

    Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades. 

    Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades | Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images

    The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II. 

    Giorgia Meloni, Italy 

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.

    Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals. 

    While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.    

    Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni at a press conference on March 9, 2023 | Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images

    Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law. 

    Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble. 

    Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative. 

    If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later. 

    Geert Wilders, the Netherlands

    The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.” 

    Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz. 

    Geert Wilders attends a meeting in the Dutch parliament with party leaders to discuss the formation of a coalition government, on November 24, 2023 | Carl Court/Getty Images

    A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders. 

    Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be. 

    Leo Varadkar, Ireland

    Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

    Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.

    A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics. 

    Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images

    Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.

    Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. 

    Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.

    Justin Trudeau, Canada  

    A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

    A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.

    Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.

    Political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals | Andrej Ivanov/AFP

    Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.

    Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.

    Pedro Sánchez, Spain

    Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry. 

    Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out. 

    Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP

    But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process. 

    The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area. 

    The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.

    Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece

    Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.

    Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.

    Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.

    Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek government of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

    In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

    In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.

    Nikos Christodoulides, Cyprus

    Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.

    Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.

    Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals. 

    The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.

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    Tim Ross, Annabelle Dickson, Clea Caulcutt, Myah Ward, Matthew Karnitschnig, Hannah Roberts, Pieter Haeck, Shawn Pogatchnik, Zi-Ann Lum, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nektaria Stamouli

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  • Hamid Karzai Fast Facts | CNN

    Hamid Karzai Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan.

    Birth date: December 24, 1957

    Birth place: Kandahar, Afghanistan

    Father: Abdul Ahad Karzai, politician

    Mother: Mother’s name unavailable publicly

    Marriage: Zinat Quraishi Karzai (1999-present)

    Children: daughter’s name unavailable publicly, 2016; Howsi, 2014; Malalai, 2012; Mirwais, 2007

    Education: Himachal University, India, master’s degree in Political Science

    A member of the Popalzai clan, part of the larger Pashtun tribe.

    Karzai was educated in India and is fluent in several languages, including English, Pashto, Dari and Urdu.

    His grandfather, Khair Mohammad Khan, served as deputy speaker of the Afghan Parliament.

    His father held high level posts in the government of King Mohammed Zahir Shah.

    1979 – After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Karzai and his father flee to Pakistan.

    1992-1993 – After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, Karzai serves as deputy foreign minister in the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

    Mid-1990s – Briefly aligns himself with the Taliban.

    1996 – Declines an invitation to become Taliban ambassador to the United Nations.

    1999 – Karzai’s father is murdered in Quetta, Pakistan, allegedly by the Taliban.

    October 2001 – Slips into Afghanistan from Pakistan, to incite an uprising against the Taliban.

    November 2001 – Is rescued by US forces during a skirmish with Taliban fighters.

    December 2001 – Karzai is chosen as interim leader of Afghanistan.

    December 5, 2001 – Is slightly injured by an errant US bomb.

    December 22, 2001 – Is inaugurated as interim president in Kabul.

    January 2002 – Visits the United States and the United Nations. Is an honored guest at US President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address.

    June 13, 2002 – At the Loya Jirga, Karzai is named president of Afghanistan for a two-year term.

    September 5, 2002 – Survives an assassination attempt in his hometown of Kandahar.

    November 3, 2004 – Is officially elected president of Afghanistan.

    December 7, 2004 – Is inaugurated president of Afghanistan.

    September 18, 2005 – First open parliamentary elections in 30 years.

    April 27, 2008 – Narrowly escapes an assassination attempt at a military parade in Kabul.

    March 29, 2009 – After the date of the presidential election is moved to August 2009, the Afghan Supreme Court rules that Karzai will remain in office for three months after his official term ends in May.

    August 20, 2009 – Afghanistan holds its second presidential election. Karzai wins by a landslide amid widespread allegations of low voter turnout, intimidation and fraud.

    October 31, 2009 – A run-off election is canceled when Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah drops out, leaving Karzai as the only candidate and winner by default.

    November 19, 2009 – Karzai is sworn in for a second term as president of Afghanistan.

    May 12, 2010 – Meets with US President Barack Obama at the White House.

    July 20, 2010 – Announces he would like to see Afghan security forces take the lead on military operations in Afghanistan by 2014.

    January 26, 2011 – Inaugurates the National Assembly, ending a political standoff between Karzai and the parliament. The inauguration comes four months after a nationwide election that critics said was marked by extensive fraud.

    September 29, 2014 – Steps down as president.

    June 2015 – Travels to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    February 5, 2019 – Travels to Moscow for a two-day conference to meet with members of the Taliban and other key Afghan figures to set the stage for peace negotiations.

    December 2, 2021 – Following the Taliban takeover in August, in a BBC interview, Karzai calls the Taliban “brothers” and urges Afghans who have left Afghanistan to return. Karzai also urges the United States to return to help the Afghan people. Karzai says he has held conversations concerning when Afghan women and girls would return to school and work.

    December 3, 2022 – Leaves Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban seized power in August 2021. Karzai reportedly faced travel restrictions. He is expected to visit the United Arab Emirates then Germany.

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