An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale struck the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan — near the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border — on Tuesday, sending shockwaves and tremors that could be felt as far out as India&#8217;s capital city of New Delhi.
Reuters issued a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/magnitude-68-earthquake-strikes-hindu-kush-afghanistan-gfz-2023-03-21/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">preliminary report</a> on the quake, which occurred at 10:17 p.m. local time, citing data from the German Research Center for Geoscience (GFZ). The GFZ determined that the quake had occurred at a depth of 114 miles.
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Strong tremors felt in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Delhi?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Delhi</a> &amp; NCR following <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Earthquake?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Earthquake</a> of 6.6 on the Richter scale striking 133 KM SSE of Fayzabad, Afghanistan. Lat: 36.09 &amp; Long: 71.35, Depth: 156 Km. : National Centre of Seismology <a href="https://t.co/KHwcoG8DpH">pic.twitter.com/KHwcoG8DpH</a>
&mdash; IANS (@ians_india) <a href="https://twitter.com/ians_india/status/1638228444617277440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Reports so far indicate that shaking was felt in Afghanistan&#8217;s capital city, Kabul, as well as several Pakistani cities — namely Islamabad and Lahore.
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⚠Preliminary info: M7.4 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/earthquake?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#earthquake</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%B2%D9%84%D8%B2%D9%84%D9%87?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#زلزله</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D1%8F%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#землетрясение</a>) about 70 km SE of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Fayzabad?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Fayzabad</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Afghanistan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Afghanistan</a>) 7 min ago (local time 21:17:24). Updates at: 📱<a href="https://t.co/LBaVNedOuH">https://t.co/LBaVNedOuH</a> 🌐<a href="https://t.co/AXvOM7ICIP">https://t.co/AXvOM7ICIP</a> 🖥<a href="https://t.co/wPtMW5OaR1">https://t.co/wPtMW5OaR1</a> <a href="https://t.co/HwnXSG19tM">pic.twitter.com/HwnXSG19tM</a>
&mdash; EMSC (@LastQuake) <a href="https://twitter.com/LastQuake/status/1638222484666474496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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On the streets after feeling the tremors in Delhi. Strong tremors across NCR. Experiencing this after the earthquake followed by tsunami in India. <a href="https://t.co/yGq9cpbB9F">pic.twitter.com/yGq9cpbB9F</a>
&mdash; KhushbuSundar (@khushsundar) <a href="https://twitter.com/khushsundar/status/1638224650898673669?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/21/powerful-earthquake-felt-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Affected countries</a> so far include Turkmenistan, India, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
&#8220;The earthquake magnitude in Pakistan is recorded at 6.8 on the Richter scale while the entire region had an impact of 7.7 magnitude with the strong tremors felt in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and China,&#8221; one reporter noted in a tweet.
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The earthquake magnitude in Pakistan is recorded at 6.8 on the Richter scale while the entire region had an impact of 7.7 magnitude with the strong tremors felt in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and China.
&mdash; Wajahat Kazmi (@KazmiWajahat) <a href="https://twitter.com/KazmiWajahat/status/1638226547554263053?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Initial reports have not included any information about possible casualties.
<a class="c-link" href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://onelink.to/dwapp" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-18974">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
A previous earthquake measuring 5.8 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/magnitude-58-earthquake-strikes-hindu-kush-region-afghanistan-gfz-2023-01-05/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">struck the same region</a> on January 5 at a depth of 117 miles, causing tremors that were felt in New Delhi, Kabul, and Islamabad.

seismograph with earthquake indication

Massive Earthquake Hits Afghanistan, Tremors Felt In India, Pakistan, And China

Massive Earthquake Hits Afghanistan, Tremors Felt As India, Pakistan, And China

Afghanistan

Disasters

earthquake

India

Natural Disaster

World

Army Gen. Michael Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that not only can the rejuvenated ISIS-K network in Afghanistan launch an attack against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months “with little or no warning,” but also hundreds of thousands of Americans abroad could be at risk.
Kurilla’s assessment came 19 months after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan implemented by President Biden which left the Taliban in charge of running the country.
Asked how long it takes ISIS-K to generate the capability to conduct external operations, Kurilla responded, “It is my commander&#8217;s estimate that they can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning.”
“I think it is a higher probability overseas than it is in the homeland,” Kurilla stated.
“If you assess six months against Europe or Asia what would you assess would be the timeline against the homeland?” Arkansas GOP Senator Tom Cotton asked.
“I think it&#8217;s hard to put a timeline on that but I asses that they could in as little as six months with little to no warning,” Kurilla replied.
“When you add up all the troops you have in your area of responsibility and Americans who are there for business or tourism or pilgrimages on any given day, what are we talking about? Probably hundreds of thousands, right?” Cotton asked.
“At least,” Kurilla said bluntly.
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“So hundreds of thousands within range of a terrorist attack, in your assessment in a mere six months from Afghanistan,” Cotton stated.
Kurilla simply nodded.
Kurilla also <a href="https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2023-03-16/centcom-kurilla-isis-afghanistan-attacks-9514063.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">admitted</a> that the quality of U.S. intelligence has plummeted since Biden’s withdrawal, as the “broad counters” of an attack can be ascertained but the U.S. no longer has the “granularity to see the full picture.”
“In Afghanistan, the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops nearly two years ago left a security vacuum that Taliban, al Qaeda, and ISIS have filled,” Mississippi GOP Senator Roger Wicker stated. “The Biden administration assured us that the Department of Defense would conduct counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan even without a limited number of U.S. troops on the ground, but the United States has only conducted one strike in more than a year. The withdrawal from Afghanistan emboldened both ISIS and al Qaeda affiliates
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U.S. Central Command and U.S. Africa Command in Review of The Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2024 and The Future Years Defense Program

Hundred Of Thousands Of Americans At Risk From Resurgent ISIS-K In Afghanistan, Top General Warns

Hundred Of Thousands Of Americans At Risk From Resurgent ISIS In Afghanistan, Top General Warns

Central Command

ISIS-K

Terrorism

Tom Cotton

U.S.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed President Joe Biden in response to emotional testimony last week from Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/marines" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marine</a> sergeant during the U.S. withdrawal from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/afghanistan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Afghanistan</a>, saying that the U.S. is in &#8220;enormous&#8221; danger under Biden.
Vargas-Andrews <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-marine-breaks-down-recounting-afghanistan-pullout-terror-attack-that-killed-13-u-s-soldiers-catastrophe">appeared</a> in front of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to speak about his experience in Afghanistan. A Marine sniper at the time, Vargas-Andrews and his team were ordered from Saudi Arabia to Kabul, Afghanistan, in August of 2021 to oversee the final weeks of the U.S. withdrawal.
Vargas-Andrews said his team asked twice for permission to take out a man they suspected of being a suicide bomber. The first time, he was denied. The second time, the battalion commander, who came to Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport to see the suspect himself, replied, “I don’t know” if they had the authority to take out the suspect.
The terrorist later detonated his vest, killing 13 U.S. service members and hundreds of Afghan civilians, injuring hundreds more.
When asked on his podcast &#8220;The Verdict&#8221; by co-host Ben Ferguson how concerned he was about U.S. national security following the Marine&#8217;s testimony, Cruz responded that he was &#8220;Enormously concerned.&#8221;
&#8220;Every enemy of America saw that disaster. Putin saw it. Xi saw it. Iran saw it. North Korea saw it. Venezuela saw it. Every terrorist cell across the globe, they all saw it,&#8221; Cruz said. &#8220;And all of them came to the same conclusion, which is this is a commander-in-chief who is weak and incompetent. This is a commander-in-chief who is afraid to fight. This is a commander-in-chief unwilling to do what it takes even to defend his own servicemen and women, never mind anyone else.&#8221;
&#8220;And we&#8217;re seeing the consequences of it right now with the war in Ukraine, the first major land war in Europe since World War II. And we&#8217;re seeing the consequences of it in the Pacific with China more and more aggressive and Taiwan in greater and greater peril,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;And I&#8217;ll tell you, I met today with Taiwan&#8217;s ambassador, and I told the ambassador, I said, ‘Look, I think the danger that Taiwan is in for the next two years of the Biden presidency is enormous.’ Because Xi looked at what happened here and concluded this President is not strong enough to deter us from doing anything.&#8221;
Cruz later repeated the sentiment on Twitter, writing: &#8220;Every enemy of America saw Joe Biden’s disaster in Afghanistan and took note.&#8221;
&#8220;Biden is weak, incompetent, and afraid to fight,&#8221; he added. &#8220;As a result, we’re in ENORMOUS danger!&#8221;
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Every enemy of America saw Joe Biden’s disaster in Afghanistan and took note. 
Biden is weak, incompetent, and afraid to fight.
As a result, we’re in ENORMOUS danger!
&mdash; Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1634601308605775873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 11, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Senator Ted Cruz speaks during CPAC (Conservative Political

Cruz Hammers Biden Over Stunning Testimony From Marine Over Biden’s Disastrous Withdraw From Afghanistan

Cruz Hammers Biden Over Stunning Testimony From Marine Over Biden's Disastrous Withdraw From Afghanistan

Joe Biden

Military

Ted Cruz

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) said on Sunday that testimony from a U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant about President Joe Biden&#8217;s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan was &#8220;devastating and damaging to the administration.&#8221;
McCaul made the remarks during an interview on CBS News&#8217;s &#8220;Face The Nation&#8221; when responding to testimony delivered last week by Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine sniper who served in Afghanistan during the withdrawal.
&#8220;Well first of all, very powerful testimony, very emotional, but very devastating and damaging to the administration,&#8221; McCaul said when asked by host Margaret Brennan to respond. &#8220;These snipers and troops were put at [Hamid Karzai International Airport], surrounded by the Taliban &#8230; who were put in charge, and that was the first mistake in the chaos that we heard that happened that day, and the State Department [was] virtually non-existent.&#8221;
&#8220;I think the most dramatic thing was the fact that this sniper had the suicide bomber in his sights, and an intelligence bulletin went out, you know, describing him,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;He said this meets the description, meets with the team, psychological operations, get together, they run this up the chain of command, and the commanding officer says, &#8216;I don&#8217;t have the authority.&#8217; And then they said, &#8216;who does have the authority for permission to engage?&#8217; And the commanding officer says, &#8216;I don&#8217;t know.&#8217; And he never got back to them.&#8221;
&#8220;The point is, they could have taken out this threat,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That then when the suicide bomber went off, not only did Marine Sgt. Vargas-Andrews have his leg blown off and his arm, but we had 140 Afghans killed, 13 servicemen and women killed. I talked to the mother of one of the marine sergeants, I gave her just a hug. She was so devastated. In addition to 50 injured, including Marine Sgt. Vargas-Andrews, and it could have been avoided.&#8221;
WATCH:
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TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face The Nation. We want to return now to our conversation with House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul. Now, Chairman, I mentioned that you held this hearing on Afghanistan this past week, and it was pretty emotional. You&#8217;re really examining the chaotic withdrawal from that country. And you had a Marine Corps Sergeant injured in the suicide bombing, who testified that he was an eye witness and he actually saw the suicide bomber before the attack. He testified he has never been interviewed as part of the US investigation. How is this overlooked?
REP. MICHEAL MCCAUL (R-TX): I think it&#8217;s very- well first of all, very powerful testimony, very emotional, but very devastating and damaging to the administration. These- these snipers and troops were put at HKIA, surrounded by the Taliban&#8211;
MARGARET BRENNAN: The airport in Kabul.
REP. MCCAUL: They put the Taliban in- in Kabul. That&#8217;s HKIA airport. And surrounded by the Taliban, who were put in charge, and that was the first mistake in the chaos that we heard that happened that day, and the State Department virtually non-existent. I think the most dramatic thing, MARGARET, was the fact that this sniper had the suicide bomber in his sights, and an intelligence bulletin went out, you know, describing him. He said this is- this meets the description, meets with the team, psyops- psychological operations, get together, they run this up the chain of command, and the commanding officer says, I don&#8217;t have the authority. And then they said, who does have the authority for permission to engage? And the commanding officer says, I don&#8217;t know. And he never got back to them. The point is, they could have taken out this threat. That then when the suicide bomber went off, not only did Marine Sgt. Vargas-Andrews have his leg blown off and his arm, but we had 140 Afghans killed, 13 servicemen and women killed. I talked to the mother of one of the marine sergeants, I gave her just a hug. She was so devastated. In addition to 50 injured, including Marine Sgt. Vargas-Andrews, and it could have been avoided.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, to the point of how it could be avoided, you know, you- you hear there were intelligence failures, events just got ahead of planning. The State Department argues that they&#8217;ve briefed Congress more than 150 times since the withdrawal. What information do you need that you don&#8217;t have yet?
REP. MCCAUL: Well, I think the compelling testimony we got from the sniper, we&#8217;ve never heard this before. In fact, MARGARET, this is the first open hearing we&#8217;ve had on Afghanistan since the fall of Afghanistan. And I intend to move forward with this investigation. And I want to know what the commanding officer was thinking when he denied permission to take out the threat, and how, what levels did it go to within the United States government? I think those are all very important questions. And the State Department has not been compliant with our document requests. I met with the Secretary. We had a very cordial conversation. Cooperation is always key. But they&#8217;re not cooperating if he fails to cooperate with my document production request by the time he testifies on March 23, I am prepared to issue a subpoena.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And issue- issue a subpoena for Antony Blinken to come testify before your committee. What exactly do you think he&#8217;s withholding? What&#8217;s the document?
REP. MCCAUL: No, he is- he- he will be testifying, but we have an outstanding document production request, that the lawyers are very combative. I think the Secretary in good faith has told me he wants to cooperate with this investigation, be transparent to the American people. But we&#8217;re not seeing that with the lawyers handling this on the ground. So we need these documents because a lot of this stuff, to your point MARGARET, has never been brought out to the public.
MARGARET BRENNAN: This is the dissent cable specifically that you are requesting? That is, people within the State Department disagreeing with the policy that was the administration&#8217;s planning?
REP. MCCAUL: It&#8217;s a dissent cable, the extraordinary measure to have 23 members of the State Department at the embassy dissenting with the policy, the after action report from the ambassador. But also the plan of evacuation, just a simple plan of evacuation. What was your plan? They have failed to deliver that to Congress. Those are three key areas that we want to see compliance with.</blockquote>

China Task Force Presser

Top Republican Reacts To Marine’s Testimony On Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal: ‘Very Devastating’ To Admin

Top Republican Reacts To Marine's Testimony On Biden's Afghanistan Withdrawal: 'Very Devastating' To Admin

Biden Administration

Congress

Michael McCaul

Politics

withdrawal

Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/marines" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marine</a> sergeant during the U.S. withdrawal from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/afghanistan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Afghanistan</a>, broke down Wednesday while recounting his experience watching 13 U.S. troops killed by a suicide bomber.
Vargas-Andrews appeared in front of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to speak about his experience in Afghanistan. A Marine sniper at the time, Vargas-Andrews and his team were ordered from Saudi Arabia to Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021 to oversee the final weeks of the U.S. withdrawal.
After arriving at Hamid Karzai International Airport in mid-August, Vargas-Andrews and his sniper team were assigned to the airport’s Abbey Gate, where the Marines processed thousands of Afghans fleeing Afghanistan, turned away thousands of others, and monitored Taliban and other terrorist activity outside the gate.
“Tens of thousands of people descended upon Abbey Gate. We were looking for anyone with a blue passport first and foremost. People were suffering from extreme malnutrition, dehydration, heat casualties, and infants were dying. Afghans brutalized and tortured by the Taliban flocked to us pleading for help,” Vargas-Andrews said in his prepared <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20230308/115427/HHRG-118-FA00-Wstate-Vargas-AndrewsT-20230308-U2.pdf">testimony</a>. “Some Afghans turned away from HKIA tried to kill themselves on the razor wire we used as a deterrent. They thought this was merciful compared to the Taliban torture they faced. Countless Afghans were murdered by the Taliban 155 yards in front of our position day and night.”
The State Department’s “unwillingness” to help with operations at the airport contributed to the chaos, Vargas-Andrews said.
On August 22, either ISIS or Taliban militants conducted a “test run” for a terror attack with an improvised explosive device (IED). On August 26, Vargas-Andrews’ team received a description of the suspected terrorist bomber and, later that day, identified a man near the Abbey gate who fit the description and “consistently and nervously” kept looking at the Marines stationed near the gate.
Vargas-Andrews said his team asked twice for permission to take out the suspected terrorist. The first time, he was denied. The second time, the battalion commander, who came to Abbey Gate to see the suspect himself, replied, “I don’t know” if they had the authority to take out the suspect.
“Myself and my team leader asked very harshly, ‘Well, who does? Because this is your responsibility, sir,’” Vargas-Andrews told Congress. The commander responded that he would find out.
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“We received no update and never got our answer. Eventually the individual disappeared,” Vargas-Andrews said. “To this day, we believe he was the suicide bomber.”
Hours later, a bomb blast ripped through the crowds outside of Abbey Gate, killing an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members. Vargas-Andrews was seriously <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/24/kabul-airport-bombing-afghanistan-evacuation/">injured</a> in the explosion, losing his right arm, left leg, left kidney, and parts of his intestines and colon. He has had dozens of surgeries since.
In recounting his memories of August 26, Vargas-Andrews had to pause several times to choke back tears.
“Our military members and veterans deserve our best because that is what we give to America,” he said. “The withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion and there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence. The eleven Marines, one Sailor, and one Soldier that were murdered that day have not been answered for.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Emotional testimony from Sgt. Vargas-Andrews on suicide bombing outside of Kabal airport: &quot;I opened my eyes to marines dead or unconscious lying around me&#8230;The withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion. There was an inexcusable lack of accountability. and negligence.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/9DLr9LGP8u">pic.twitter.com/9DLr9LGP8u</a>
&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1633506179270823936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Tyler Vargas-Andrews

WATCH: Marine Breaks Down Recounting Afghanistan Pullout, Terror Attack That Killed 13 U.S. Soldiers: ‘Catastrophe’

Global Politics

Marines

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington D.C.

The following remarks were delivered by Lt. Col. (ret) Scott Mann at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the <a href="https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/during-and-after-the-fall-of-kabul-examining-the-administrations-emergency-evacuation-from-afghanistan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Afghanistan Withdrawal</a> on March 8, 2023.
As a Green Beret and retired Lt. Col. with nearly 23 years in service and three combat tours in Afghanistan, I am here to relive August 2021 with all of you. Not as a Democrat or a Republican, but as an American veteran, representing 800,000 Afghan combat veterans, and their families, but with my own point of view.
I’d like to start with a question: What does an American promise mean today?
There is a promise in the military that is both explicit and implicit: &#8220;I have your back.&#8221; We were trained that way. It’s in our blood.
But, in August of 2021, the leaders who held us to that standard went silent while our Afghan allies were left behind. The U.S. government may not have had the backs of our Afghan allies. But our veterans did.
For as long as we&#8217;ve been a nation, our veterans have been a moral compass for doing the right thing, especially in hard times.
You won’t find many veterans who relished being involved in the Afghan evacuation. We paid our dues and moved on with our lives. Jumping back into the quagmire of Afghanistan was not part of my military retirement plan. 
But, like thousands of other veterans across the country watching Kabul collapse on August 15, 2021, I received a phone call from a friend that absolutely crushed me.
“I am not afraid to die,” he told me. “I just don’t want to die alone.”
Those were the words that dragged me back into Afghanistan.
His name was Sergeant First Class Nezamudin Nezami, but I knew him just as Nezam. His father, a Mujahideen fighter, was killed by the Soviets when Nezam was only four months old. He had no family, money, or hope — yet he became an Afghan Commando, one of the elite warriors trained by Green Berets to do 95% of the fighting in the war.
Green Berets, including me, who worked with Nezam, loved him like a brother. He volunteered for every mission, every day. He was family.
Despite numerous inquiries to the State Department, Congress, and Army SOF Command HQ, about his SIV status (Special Immigrant Visa), Kabul was falling and Nezam was in terrible trouble — and no one was coming to help him.
This was a guy who was shot through the face in 2010 while protecting U.S. Green Berets from a Taliban ambush. A friend, who despite being on the run from the Taliban, called me in my retirement every couple of months, just to check on my kids. And now we were just leaving him on the side of the road to be slaughtered. 
Over the next few weeks, I assembled a small team of volunteers, mostly veterans from across the country that we called Task Force Pineapple to guide Nezam and hundreds more to safety. 
No resources. No battlefield access. No time. But we had something that most didn’t. Relationships and trust. We used cell phones, knowledge of the terrain, and an encrypted chat room to guide at-risk commandos and their families at night. We navigated the suffocating crowd, through an open sewage canal, and into position to pass bona fides and tactically link up with known NATO service members operating near a four-foot hole in the airfield perimeter fence.
Pineapple wasn’t the only group. There were hundreds of ad hoc volunteer groups doing similar work. From breakfast tables to basements across the world. People like Jane, a Gold Star wife who lost her husband in Afghanistan; Will, a double amputee fighting to save the interpreter who saved his life; and dozens more collaborating with warriors like Aidan who were staring across razor wire at an endless sea of desperate faces.
We helped hundreds of allies, but thousands were left behind, and at great cost to this vulnerable veteran population, who had already given so much.
My buddy Steve, racked with PTS and a traumatic brain injury from an IED, pounded his bed, screaming into his pillow because his children were in the next room, as his former interpreter was detained at a Taliban checkpoint and was pleading over the phone: &#8220;Steve, they are beating my wife. My children are watching this for God’s sake. Should I fight them? Why is this happening?!&#8221;
Jay, A former Navy SEAL, received a text on Signal from his Afghan partner: &#8220;My daughter has been trampled, Sir. I know we are going to miss our chance to escape, but she is unconscious and barely breathing. It’s okay, my friend. Thank you for trying.&#8221;
This whole thing has been a gut-wrenching experience. I never imagined I would witness this kind of gross abandonment, followed by career-preserving silence of senior leaders, both military and civilian.
I believe we are on the front end of a national security crisis as 27 violent extremist groups are now operating on former NATO bases with Taliban top-cover. And we are about to experience a veteran mental health tsunami, as 73% of our Afghan War veterans say they feel betrayed by how the Afghanistan war ended.
Calls to the VA hotline have spiked 81% one year after the Afghanistan withdrawal. And the calls keep coming. My friend Brad was found dead a few months ago in a Mississippi hotel room. His wife Dana confirmed the Afghan abandonment re-activated all the demons he’d managed to put behind him and he just couldn’t find his way out of the darkness of that moral injury.
America is building a nasty reputation for multi-generational, systemic abandonment of our allies that we leave as smoldering human wreckage from the Montagnards of Vietnam to the Kurds of Syria.
Our veterans know something else that this committee might do well to consider: We might be done with Afghanistan, but it&#8217;s not done with us. The enemy has a vote. If we don’t set politics aside and pursue accountability and lessons learned to address this grievous moral injury on our military community; and right the wrongs inflicted on the most at-risk Afghan allies, this colossal foreign policy failure will follow us home and ultimately draw us right back into the graveyard of empires where it all started. 
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Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Scott Mann is a former U.S. Army Green Beret with tours all over the world including Colombia, Iraq, and multiple tours in Afghanistan. He is a warrior storyteller and the founder of <a href="https://rooftopleadership.com/">Rooftop Leadership</a> and the author of the instant New York Times Best-Seller, <a href="https://operationpineappleexpress.com/">Operation Pineapple Express</a>. He has since founded <a href="https://operelief.org/">Operation Pineapple Express Relief</a>, a 501c3 to help support the emergency needs of our Afghan allies such as safe passage out of Afghanistan, plus unforeseen resettlement needs.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-AFGHANISTAN-CONFLICT

‘Gross Abandonment’: Former Green Beret Tells Congress A High Price Was Paid For Chaotic Afghan Withdrawal

Readers Pass

U.S. Army

The Pentagon and State Department are at war with an official government auditor, refusing to cooperate with a probe of how 20 years of missteps by top Washington brass led to Afghanistan being ceded to the ragtag Taliban despite $90 billion in U.S. funds, a government <a href="https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/evaluations/SIGAR-23-16-IP.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> revealed Monday.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has been one of the most incisive watchdogs in Washington, keeping tabs on a foreign matter that was largely out of the public eye even as U.S. “experts” appeared to make one blunder after another. After numerous embarrassing reports, DOD and State are now refusing to cooperate with SIGAR, stating that it only has the authority to audit Afghanistan reconstruction&#8211;which ended when the U.S. pulled out.
In August 2021, President Joe Biden withdrew troops and contractors from the country overnight, without even telling Afghan soldiers on patrol. It left equipment behind, which the Taliban took and used for combat and propaganda, and some of the Afghan forces that the U.S. had trained to fight the Taliban themselves joined &#8220;extremist groups,&#8221; the report said.
Biden subsequently began allowing former Taliban employees to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-allowing-former-taliban-employees-to-migrate-to-u-s-under-refugee-program-billed-as-for-interpreters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">migrate</a> to the U.S. under a refugee program billed as being for &#8220;interpreters,&#8221; while <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/china-and-russia-now-working-with-taliban-controlled-afghanistan-one-year-after-u-s-withdrawal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russia and China</a> moved in to Afghanistan to exploit its natural resources.
“We identified eight systemic factors that explain why, after 20 years and nearly $90 billion in U.S. security assistance, the [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] was vulnerable to collapse in the first place,” SIGAR said.
In May 2022, SIGAR provided DOD and State with an interim report, but &#8220;DOD and State declined to review that interim draft, denied us access to their staff, and mostly declined to answer requests for information,&#8221; SIGAR wrote in its new report.
By this month, a cold war was emerging in the normally-mundane letters exchanging information between them.
&#8220;We offered to continue to meet regularly to further discuss the range of issues covered in the draft, but the author did not follow up,&#8221; S. Rebecca Zimmerman, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia, claimed February 16.
SIGAR responded: &#8220;DOD’s assertion that the author &#8216;never followed up&#8217; on its offer to discuss the draft report is simply false. Moreover, DOD’s highlighting of &#8216;the efforts undertaken by DoD to cooperate with SIGAR&#8217; should be viewed in the context of a history of extensive delays, missed deadlines, and incomplete answers to questions.&#8221;
&#8220;SIGAR strongly disagrees with DOD’s characterization of their engagement on this report. In fact, DOD only provided limited responses to SIGAR’s request for information (RFI) and missed every deadline for responding to SIGAR’s questions or for providing feedback to vetting drafts of this report,&#8221; it continued.
Richard Visek, the acting legal adviser for the State Department, told SIGAR it had a dubious right to investigate the turmoil in Afghanistan because &#8220;Reconstruction in Afghanistan has ended&#8221; and that the U.S. money being spent there now is &#8220;humanitarian,&#8221; not for reconstruction.
&#8220;While certain assistance may once have fallen under SIGAR&#8217;s jurisdiction insofar as it was part of the United States&#8217; broader reconstruction effort, our assistance after August 2021 is no longer being provided for the reconstruction of Afghanistan,&#8221; he wrote.
&#8220;You have repeatedly cited section 1229(i)(2) of the NDAA for FY 2008 as giving SIGAR jurisdiction over humanitarian and development programs&#8230; This is incorrect,&#8221; he added.
The State Department said that the U.S.’s broader failures in Afghanistan should not be examined by SIGAR’s trained investigators but rather by the Afghanistan War Commission, a panel consisting of 16 politicians, activists, former defense contractor executives, and former military brass who were players in the failures they’d be investigating. Eight were appointed by congressional Republicans, and eight by congressional Democrats.
The Commission’s <a href="https://www.afghanistanwarcommission.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a> says it &#8220;plans to formally convene in early 2023,&#8221; but it also says it has not yet hired an executive director and that other staff positions depend on &#8220;availability of funding.&#8221; The &#8220;Democratic co-chair&#8221; is Shamila N. Chaudhary, whose biography says she is &#8220;co-editor of documentary photography book UnPresidented: The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump and the People’s Response.&#8221;
The &#8220;Republican co-chair,&#8221; Colin Francis Jackson, could have a hard time doing aggressive oversight work because he himself was a central player as Afghanistan fell apart, serving as &#8220;Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia (2017-2019), overseeing all strategy, security cooperation, budget oversight, and contingency planning. He also served as the senior DOD representative to the U.S.-Taliban peace talks. &#8221;
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In contrast to a view from the elite, SIGAR has cultivated sources in the trenches to bring a view from the ground in Afghanistan, and has often done complex financial analysis.
Its <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watchdogs-damning-report-on-war-in-afghanistan-details-two-decade-debacle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interim report</a> detailed a shocking combination of arrogance and incompetence by U.S. officials&#8211;one that led many Afghans to conclude that the Taliban was simply better at providing efficient government than the U.S.
In one case, American-allied forces thought they were fighting the Taliban, but they had actually radicalized a formerly-peaceful group of villagers by imposing unnecessary rules in the name of “unsubstantiated environmental concerns.” The villagers were loggers, and the new government was blocking their way of life.
The report described how virtue-signaling by idealists sometimes led to a detachment from reality. Some U.S. officials opposed leaving Afghanistan because of “an idealized vision of advancing the rights of Afghan women. [But] this group interacted with a small number of women’s rights advocates who were not representative of the overall population,” the report said.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watchdogs-damning-report-on-war-in-afghanistan-details-two-decade-debacle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Watchdog’s Damning Report On War In Afghanistan Details Two-Decade Debacle</a>

TALIBAN RULE OVER KABUL

Defense, State Departments Refusing To Cooperate On Examination Of Their Afghanistan Blunders, Auditor Says

Department of Defense

State Department

Keep your eye on Karen Decker for secretary of state if <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-searches-university-of-delaware-for-biden-docs-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">President Joe Biden</a> wins a second term. She’s his kind of diplomat.
Decker is the United States’ “charge d’affaires” for Afghanistan, which is the closest thing we have to an ambassador in that God- and U.S.-forsaken country. You remember Afghanistan, the eternally ungovernable land where about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watchdogs-damning-report-on-war-in-afghanistan-details-two-decade-debacle/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2,500 of the brave men and women of our military died,</a> and we spent trillions of dollars over 20 years, only to leave and put the terrorists back in charge.
Decker loves to communicate with Afghans through Twitter because people in a nation with a per capita income of about $500(!) are obviously obsessed with social media. And she really likes to help jumpstart rollicking conversations about history and culture by posing provocative questions that, truth be told, are more Kamala than Kissinger.
“Super Bowl LVII,” she tweeted on February 13. “Two elite quarterbacks who happen to be Black made history in epic showdown. Congrats to Chiefs for thrilling victory! Afghans – what’s the most exciting sports match you remember?”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Biden’s ambassador to Afghanistan. <a href="https://t.co/clVvidaoF6">pic.twitter.com/clVvidaoF6</a>
&mdash; Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1626078150424764416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Imagine being an Afghani father contemplating selling your prepubescent daughter to a connected creep five times her age just so you could feed the rest of your family. Somehow, you happen to have a smartphone, and you follow this numbskull on Twitter. You might reply to Decker’s tweet with something like this:
“Great question!” you tweet. “I really miss watching football now that your boss has put the Taliban back in control of our country and they use our stadiums for <a href="https://8am.media/eng/taliban-invites-outlookers-to-farah-football-stadium-to-watch-public-executions/#:~:text=The%20Taliban%20called%20on%20the%20residents%20of%20Afghanistan%E2%80%99s,today%2C%20sources%20in%20Farah%20confirmed%20to%20Hasht-e%20Subh.">mass public executions</a>. Also, thanks for the update on the Super Bowl, as we don’t have a television. Or electricity.”
The U.S. doesn’t currently maintain an embassy in Afghanistan, having moved operations to Qatar after the disastrous August 2021 pullout that led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members and the return of the Taliban terrorist regime. Decker, who works out of the Qatari embassy in Doha, is the top-ranked U.S. diplomat assigned to Afghanistan because she apparently drew the shortest straw in the history of the State Department.
A career foreign service officer whose State Department bio says she specializes in “conflict resolution and crisis management,” Decker was only scratching the surface of social media stupidity.
“Are Afghans familiar with #BlackGirlMagic and the movement it inspired?” she tweeted on February 15. “Do Afghan girls need a similar movement? What about Afghan women? Teach me, ready to learn.”
Afghan girls were also “ready to learn” back when the U.S. was around to prop up a feckless and corrupt government. But alas, Karen, under the Taliban government the Biden administration restored to power, girls can’t go to school, and women can’t show their faces outside. Maybe a leftist podcast and some ‘girl power’ bromides are all that’s needed for Afghan women to put these medieval meanies in their place. America could even send a few social justice warriors over to help them make signs and practice chanting slogans. We could send all of them, come to think of it.
Here is Decker’s patronizing attempt to share a little of our own history. Note the glowing homage to perhaps America’s greatest president.
“Abe Lincoln born today in 1809,” she tweeted on February 12. “He did some stuff. It’s also NAACP Day – home of grassroots activism, inclusive communities, and making sure Black voices are heard. What does that look like for Afghans struggling to be heard?”
Decker seems to have wandered into Afghanistan from a writers’ meeting at Disney+, but she is actually no stranger to the war-ravaged nation. She was director for Afghanistan Operations for the Afghan Relocation Effort from 2021-2022, deputy chief of mission of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul from September 2018 to September 2020, and served other stints in the country on behalf of the U.S. going back as far as 2006. You would think she knew better, and perhaps she does.
As ridiculous as Decker’s tweets may seem to you, and to Afghans, if they actually ever saw them, maybe neither is the intended audience. Decker might be spewing this woke claptrap purely for the Biden administration’s personnel department. They’ve undoubtedly got big plans for her come 2024.

Karen Decker

Our Top Afghanistan Diplomat Is Just Joe Biden’s Type Of Tone-Deaf Twit

Our Top Afghanistan Diplomat Is Just Joe Biden's Type Of Tone-Deaf Twit

Taliban

The following book excerpt is taken from “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Aziz-Mission-Calling-Thousands/dp/1400238137/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1673890231&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saving Aziz</a>&#8221; by Chad Robichaux with David L. Thomas, (Thomas Nelson, January 2023).
<h2>Bashir’s Return </h2>
With the Taliban’s takeover imminent, my concern for Aziz’s life, on a 1–10 scale, climbed to 9.
If he had been alone, I would not have worried as much because Aziz could find a way to evade the Taliban and get to a safe location. But he had his wife and six kids with him. And when Aziz and I communicated, his usual steady tone was missing. He was scared for his family.
The velocity behind the Taliban’s momentum forced us to repeatedly adjust our plan of going into Afghanistan with the media story cover. We found a potential work-around for obtaining a business visa for Aziz as his reason for wanting to live in the UAE. To provide legitimacy for the business visa, Aziz needed a stand-up company in Dubai. The project’s cost kept rising. But each time the dollar amount increased, someone compelled by Aziz’s story stepped forward to offer a donation, including Dave Barton and Rick Green from WallBuilders. Another friend kicked in $100,000, giving us a $185,000 budget for saving Aziz’s family.
The media attention on Afghanistan forced the Taliban to try to control its mob, if you will. The Taliban had become more PR savvy, and they knew all they needed to do was run out the clock and the country would be theirs. They could claim that the execution of those twenty-two commandos in Dawlat Abad was part of war. But killing innocent civilians was not, and if reports and videos of the Taliban killing women and children got out, that was perhaps the only thing that might cause the United States to delay its withdrawal.
But controlling barbarians is no easy task.
Atrocities were being handled discreetly by Taliban standards. But the Taliban was known to be systematically seeking out interpreters and other allies for interrogation. Some were killed. Aziz told me that one interpreter had pleaded for help getting out of the country because the Taliban had threatened his life. He was out driving with his young son one day and came upon a Taliban checkpoint. Knowing his fate if he stopped, he sped through the checkpoint. The Taliban shot up his car to stop him. Then they pulled him out of his car and, with his son watching, cut off his head.
Aziz’s greatest fear was that the Taliban would take his wife and kids and force Aziz to watch as they raped his daughters. Only then would they kill Aziz.
Aziz had achieved a high profile around Kabul. We paid interpreters well, and his business smarts had allowed the companies he ran after I left to be profitable. His natural leadership made him a respected figure in his community, so he was easy to find.
Plus, Bashir, the person responsible for the execution of my ten Afghan teammates and the bombing of my house, had been freed. He had become a Taliban leader and now targeted Aziz.
During the Obama administration, prisoners of war were usually released to Afghanistan, and Bashir transferred from the Bagram Air Base prison to the Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul. He served five years there. As Aziz tells the story — and his anger is still evident when he tells it — when Bashir was released, some Americans gave him money and shipped him to Saudi Arabia.
Aziz balked.
“You guys could have killed him,” Aziz said.
“We don’t kill people like that. That’s not in our rules,” came the reply. 
“But he’s one of the bad guys,” Aziz countered. “He told everything about our operations to the Taliban.”
Aziz was assured that Bashir was sent out of the country so he couldn’t reveal more information.
As the Taliban started capturing provinces, Aziz received an alert from a friend who recognized Bashir among the Taliban. Bashir was now a Taliban commander. Aziz knew Bashir would seek revenge for Aziz’s role in his spending six years in prison.
“They are headed to Kabul,” Aziz’s friend warned. “You need to change your location.”
Aziz contacted me to tell me about Bashir and said he and his family were on the move, staying in a different house every night. They lived out of their backpacks, and I spoke to him daily to keep posted on their status and movements.
As good of a plan as our media cover was, it was no longer feasible. Aziz’s family didn’t have that much time.
Securing SIVs for Aziz’s family remained Plan A, but I held out no hope for those chances. We didn’t need a Plan B — we needed a second Plan A. And that plan was to go save Aziz and his family.
<a href="http://savingaziz.org"><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-489423 size-medium" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/9781400238132.cover_.001-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/9781400238132.cover_.001-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/9781400238132.cover_.001-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/9781400238132.cover_.001-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/9781400238132.cover_.001-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/9781400238132.cover_.001-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/9781400238132.cover_.001-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/9781400238132.cover_.001-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a> 

Chad Robichaux is a former Force Recon Marine and Department of Defense contractor with eight deployments to Afghanistan as part of a Special Operations Task Force. After overcoming his own personal battles with PTSD, Chad founded the Mighty Oaks Foundation, a leading nonprofit that has served veterans through their faith-based, combat resiliency programs. His new book is &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Aziz-Mission-Calling-Thousands/dp/1400238137/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1673890231&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saving Aziz</a>: How the Mission to Help One Became a Calling to Rescue Thousands from the Taliban.&#8221;
Adapted by permission from Thomas Nelson. ©2023 by Chad Robichaux. Published by Nelson Books. Coming January, 2023 <a href="http://savingaziz.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wherever books are sold</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

How One Marine Risked His Life To Save His Afghan Interpreter From The Taliban

Books

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden administration</a> is reportedly debating on how harsh its response should be to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/taliban" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Taliban’s</a> recent acts against women and protesters in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/afghanistan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Afghanistan</a>.
U.S. officials worry that too harsh a response could alienate Taliban leaders, with whom the U.S. is trying to cooperate on counterterrorism efforts, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/05/biden-taliban-anti-woman-policies-00076639?nname=playbook&amp;nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nrid=0000015e-f320-d26d-a7fe-fbf341270000&amp;nlid=630318" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Politico</a>.
“We knew this was coming but dreaded it and couldn’t stop it,” one administration official told Politico.
The reported divide is best visible in the tension between Tom West, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, and Rina Amiri, U.S. special envoy for Afghan women, girls, and human rights. The two agree that there should be repercussions for the Taliban, though the two disagree on the degree that U.S. interests in working with the Taliban should factor into the U.S. response.
“It’s generally true that Tom wants to find some way to keep working with the Taliban. I think he thinks that’s his mandate from the president,” an official said. “Rina has a more human rights-principled approach — do what we should do and let the chips fall where they may.”
The White House downplayed the existence of divisions among the staff over the administration’s response to the Taliban. State Department spokesman Ned Price on Wednesday told reporters that the U.S. is working with “partners” to come up with an appropriate response.
“We are working with our partners throughout the government and also with like-minded partners around the world to devise an appropriate set of consequences that register our condemnation for this outrageous edict on the part of the Taliban, while also protecting our status as the world’s leading humanitarian provider for the people of Afghanistan,” Price said.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the terror group has enacted a series of strict laws, especially restricting the freedom of women. In December, Taliban leaders <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64045497" target="_blank" rel="noopener">banned</a> women from attending universities in the country. Women are also under other strict regulations, such as a rule banning them from traveling outside their homes without a male guardian.
Protests over the strict Taliban rule are typically broken up.
The terror group has faced international condemnation over its rule. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned the Taliban that the more it presses in its strict rule, the further isolated Afghanistan will become from the world.
The U.S. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/unbelievable-biometric-device-with-identities-of-u-s-servicemen-afghan-allies-sold-on-ebay-for-68-report-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">withdrew</a> its last troops from Afghanistan on August 30, 2021, ending a 20-year occupation of the country. The withdrawal was chaotic, bloody, and marred the reputation of the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus. Hundreds of Americans, thousands of the U.S. military’s Afghan allies, and millions of dollars worth of U.S. military equipment were left behind.
The U.S. also lost 13 servicemen in a terror attack on Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, the final headquarters of the U.S. withdrawal as the Taliban blitzed and conquered the country behind the departing Americans. In an attempted counterstrike against a suspected terrorist, the U.S. mistakenly bombed an Afghan aid worker, killing 10 civilians, including seven children.

Taliban protest

Biden Admin Struggles To Respond To Taliban Crackdown On Women, Dissent In Afghanistan

Executive

Foreign Policy

White House

Alleged sex trafficker and online media personality Andrew Tate has an unsavory group of friends concerned about him&#8211; the Taliban.
The radical Islamic militant group currently in charge of Afghanistan are reportedly &#8220;worried&#8221; about Tate, after he was arrested in Romania on charges of human trafficking last week. The Taliban reportedly made the comments in a Twitter Spaces chat on New Year&#8217;s Eve with &#8220;anti-woke&#8221; journalist and former Miss New Jersey, Sameera Khan.
&#8220;We are hosting a Twitter space with the Afghan Taliban to discuss the detainment of Andrew Tate,&#8221; Khan wrote on Twitter. &#8220;They are worried about Andrew Tate and they are asking us if he’s free yet. They say westerners need Andrew Tate because we are oppressed by feminists.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
We are hosting a Twitter space with the Afghan Taliban to discuss the detainment of Andrew Tate.
They are worried about Andrew Tate and they are asking us if he’s free yet.
They say westerners need Andrew Tate because we are oppressed by feminists.
&mdash; Sameera Khan (@SameeraKhan) <a href="https://twitter.com/SameeraKhan/status/1609079456991150087?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 31, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
According to a tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/SameeraKhan/status/1609058238602919936?s=20&amp;t=GMOQsvdEFS6_BiNRuxFH5Q" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promoting the Twitter Space</a>, it was hosted by Khan. Speakers in the space included a number of American freelance journalists, Afghan journalist Omar Baryal, and a number of Afghan accounts with handles in Pashto, an official language of Afghanistan. The Space was entitled &#8220;Andrew Tate w/ Taliban,&#8221; with Tate&#8217;s name surrounded by heart emojis.
Tate, a recent convert to Islam, and the Taliban seem to have a mutual admiration for each other. In an interview on &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QcZSVu3CCY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Piers Morgan Uncensored</a>&#8221; in December, Tate praised the Taliban for supposedly bringing law and order to Afghanistan. &#8220;It&#8217;s very difficult to sit and make black and white assumptions about anything, to sit and say that the Taliban are completely and utterly evil and we&#8217;re completely and utterly good,&#8221; said Tate. &#8220;I believe that the Taliban bring Law and Order. It may not be the Law and Order we like, but it&#8217;s a form of Law and Order, and humans usually gravitate [to it].&#8221;
A few days later, Tate met with <a href="https://twitter.com/Cobratate/status/1606323233535451136?s=20&amp;t=hTQGdLmvIpLGSGHSbggJsA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Miles Routledge</a>, the British &#8220;danger tourist&#8221; who visited Afghanistan during the Taliban&#8217;s initial takeover of the country. Routledge told him that the Taliban found his videos on social media and promote him as an example of a virtuous Western Muslim promoting traditional values.
&#8220;So I usually go to them and ask&#8230; &#8216;who are some famous people you know?&#8217; And you know who they say? They say Andrew f***ing Tate,&#8221; Routledge said. &#8220;And these mountain Taliban, who have been in the mountains for like 20 years, fighting, they haven&#8217;t seen a laptop in their lives, now they&#8217;ve got TikTok&#8230; they see you, and they&#8217;re idolizing you. They literally just promote you.&#8221;
Romanian authorities reportedly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/andrew-tate-detained-in-romania-in-human-trafficking-investigation-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">detained Tate</a> and his brother Tristan on Thursday on charges of abducting two women.
Local media reported that sources close to the investigation said the former policewoman allegedly formed a criminal group. Romanian prosecutors said the group explicitly aims to recruit and exploit girls to create and distribute pornographic clips on sites like OnlyFans.
The raid was conducted by the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT ), according to Romanian media outlet G4Media.
According to Daily Mail, DIICOT said in a news release that Romania’s police, crime, and investigation unit had raided five homes with search warrants issued in connection to an ongoing investigation into an organized criminal group, human trafficking, and rape.
The alleged victims were “recruited by two British citizens” who were later transported and housed in buildings in Ilfov county, police said.
Authorities did not name the suspects.
The women were then allegedly subjected to “physical violence and mental coercion’ and were ‘sexually exploited by group members by forcing them to perform pornographic demonstrations […] for the purpose of producing and disseminating through social media platforms,” Daily Mail reported.
Authorities reportedly detained the two brothers for 24 hours.
Brandon Drey contributed to this report.

Andrew Tate

Andrew Tate’s Friends, The Taliban, Are ‘Worried’ About Him After His Arrest

Andrew Tate's Friends, The Taliban, Are 'Worried' About Him After His Arrest

Sex Trafficking

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A newly released Pentagon report has concluded that U.S. military bases used to house Afghan nationals that were evacuated from Afghanistan amid President Joe Biden&#8217;s pullout from the country have sustained hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage.
The report comes after approximately <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/25/numbers-behind-afghan-evacuation-come-into-focus/">76,000</a> Afghan nationals were evacuated over a period of several days back in August 2021 to staging bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Italy, Bahrain, and Germany.
The evacuees were then sent to temporary housing facilities at eight DoD installations — Fort Bliss, Texas; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL), New Jersey; Fort McCoy, Wisconsin; Camp Atterbury, Indiana; Fort Pickett, Virginia; Fort Lee, Virginia; Marine Corps Base (MCB) Quantico, Virginia; and Holloman Air Force Base (AFB), New Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2022/Dec/21/2003136137/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2023-040.PDF">said</a> that 11 of the installations submitted estimates to reset facilities, equipment, and consumables to pre-Operation Allies Welcome conditions.
The costs were broken down into two categories: Facilities and Equipment/Consumables.
The report said that there was an estimated $257.48 million in damage to the facilities, including $174.9 million for Army bases, $3.21 million for Navy bases, $63 million for Air Force bases, and $16.37 million for Marine Corps bases.
A group of DoD restoration reviewers said that $238.04 million in damages were eligible to be paid for through Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid (OHDACA) funds.
The report said that the remainder in damages to facilities and damages to equipment/consumables — more than $100 million — would need to paid for through the operation and maintenance or military construction appropriations allocated to each involved DoD Component.
For example, Air Force officials said that the damage caused by the Afghan nationals was unrepairable as officials described &#8220;tables, chairs, and cots broken by guests and tents and cots ruined by spray paint, human biological matter, and holes.&#8221;
The high costs to U.S. taxpayers resulted in damaging the U.S. military&#8217;s preparedness for military operations, the report said.
&#8220;DoD installations reported that facilities and equipment were overused, damaged, and remained in various degrees of disrepair, resulting in a costly maintenance effort,&#8221; the inspector general found. &#8220;DoD installations need to restore their facilities and equipment to a condition that enables them to conduct trainings, prepare for future events, and return to normal base operations.&#8221;

SPAIN-AFGHANISTAN-CONFLICT

U.S. Military Bases That Took In Afghan Evacuees Suffered Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars In Damage: Pentagon IG

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