The Taliban claimed Saturday that their forces had seized several districts in the northern Panjshir Valley, the last remaining province in Afghanistan holding out against the Islamist group.Taliban officials said that overnight advances had brought several days of fighting to Anaba, an area close to the provincial capital, Bazarak.Emergency, an Italy-based charity, confirmed the Taliban had reached Anaba. The nongovernmental organization, which runs a medical center in the area, said its facility had “received a small number of wounded people.”There has so far been no interference with EMERGENCY’s activities. We have received a small number of wounded people at the Anabah Surgical Centre.FILE – Militiamen loyal to Ahmad Massoud take part in a training exercise in Panjshir province, northeastern Afghanistan, Aug. 30, 2021.The Panjshir Valley, home to the country’s Tajik ethnic minority and located north of the capital, Kabul, is surrounded by mountain peaks.Afghanistan has 34 provinces and 33 of them were overrun by the Taliban last month in a stunningly swift military campaign that ended with their seizure of Kabul on August 15.The fighting for the control of Panjshir broke out several days ago and since then both sides have been making inflated claims and counterclaims about their battlefield gains.The anti-Taliban armed resistance comprises members of the U.S.-trained former Afghan security force and local tribal militias. It is being led by Ahmad Massoud. His father successfully defended Panjshir when the Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.Massoud vowed in a Facebook post Saturday to resist and “stand strongly in the fight” against the Taliban.The lack of control over all of Afghanistan has apparently discouraged the Taliban from announcing a new government.Members of Taliban security forces stand guard among crowds of people walking past in a street in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 4, 2021.On Saturday, small groups of female activists took to the streets in Kabul and in parts of western Afghanistan, demanding respect for their rights and representation in the new government.Taliban fighters broke up a rally of about a dozen women in the capital to stop them from heading to the presidential palace.Footage circulating on social media showed demonstrators confronted by armed Taliban fighters covering their mouths and coughing, with one woman saying the security guards had used tear gas to disperse the rally.“They also hit women on the head with gun magazines, and the women became bloody,” said one of the demonstrators who identified herself as Soraya.“Taliban blocking protest by beatings and tear gas: unfortunately this is pretty much on brand for a group that relies on brute force to suppress dissent,” tweeted Patria Gossman, associate Asia director for Human Rights Watch.The Taliban imposed a brutal justice system and banned women from work and prevented older girls from receiving an education when the fundamentalist group had previously seized power in Afghanistan.FILE – Afghan women’s rights defenders and civil activists protest to call on the Taliban for the preservation of their achievements and education, in front of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 3, 2021.However, Taliban leaders have promised to install an inclusive government in Kabul that they say will allow women to work and receive education within the framework of Islamic law, or Shariah, but many Afghans doubt the reliability of their pledges.”It will be an inclusive, strong central and sustainable system of government,” Bilal Karimi, a Taliban spokesman, told VOA on Friday.The Taliban are under international scrutiny for delivery on pledges that their governance system will represent all Afghan ethnic groups and respect human rights, particularly those of women, unlike their previous exclusive hardline regime in Kabul.Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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Qatar’s ambassador to Afghanistan said a technical team was able to reopen Kabul airport to receive aid and that it would be prepared for civilian flights soon, Al Jazeera reported Saturday.
 
The runway at Kabul airport has been repaired in cooperation with authorities in Afghanistan, the ambassador said, according to Al Jazeera. The Qatari news channel also said two domestic flights were operating from Kabul to the cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar.
 
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In a chaotic effort, the U.S. managed to evacuate more than 124,000 civilians from Afghanistan, including 6,000 Americans, by Aug. 30. However, Nasria is one of the 100 to 200 Americans who remain trapped there. She asked that we use only her first name for her safety. She spoke exclusively with VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, describing her ordeal.
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With the last U.S. service members leaving Kabul, ending a 20-year war, Afghanistan’s women and girls are facing the stark reality that the Taliban are back in control of their country. As VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, there are already signs that their rights are in danger.
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Mobile services in Indian Kashmir were restored late on Friday, two days after they were suspended following the death of a veteran secessionist leader in the disputed Himalayan region, a police official told Reuters.However, curbs on mobile internet and restrictions on the movement of people in the Kashmir valley would continue, police chief Vijay Kumar said.India tightened curbs on movement of people in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar and elsewhere, with scores of armed soldiers fanning out ahead of prayers on Friday, a day after Syed Ali Shah Geelani was laid to rest.Geelani, 91, died on Wednesday and was buried near his home in the city, where soldiers patrolled the streets to forestall any large-scale protests and gatherings at mosques.”More troops have been deployed in sensitive areas and more roads have been barricaded,” a government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.Despite the curfew there was violence in at least a dozen places in Kashmir in which one paramilitary trooper was injured, the official said, adding that police had to use tear gas to disperse crowds.For years, Geelani, one of Kashmir’s most senior political leaders, had led a hardline faction of separatist groups that sought to secede from India following an armed revolt against New Delhi.Kashmir has long been a flashpoint between India and archrival Pakistan, which claim the region in full but rule only parts.Tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors were renewed in August 2019, when New Delhi scrapped the autonomy of its state of Jammu and Kashmir, splitting it into two federally administered territories.Shops were shut across parts of Srinagar, with many streets deserted and coils of barbed wire strung across them. Soldiers with assault rifles manned checkpoints.Health worker Shakeel Ahmad said he had to navigate more barricades on Friday to get to his hospital than a day ago.”I was stopped at around a dozen places,” he said.
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The U.N. refugee agency warns millions of Afghans displaced by conflict inside their country are teetering on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe and need international aid to survive.An estimated 3.5 million Afghans have been uprooted by conflict and insecurity, including more than half-a-million newly displaced people this year. Women and children account for most of the internally displaced.The UNHCR has predicted about 500,000 Afghans will likely flee to neighboring countries, attempting to seek asylum. However, U.N. observers at Pakistani and Iranian border points report that a large-scale refugee influx, so far, has not materialized.Speaking via video link from the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said his agency is trying to analyze why so few people are coming.“There could be many, many reasons but the reality is the displacement crisis is inside Afghanistan.… What we have seen, where the crisis has been, has been an internal displacement crisis and that is why we keep repeating that let us not allow it to become a humanitarian catastrophe, so we are able to support the Afghans inside their country with the support they need,” he said.Baloch said the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan remains open to commercial trade between the two countries. But he said a limited number of Afghan pedestrians cross every day.That flow, he said, is very regulated and managed at the border. He said people who have passports, visas or other documents they can show are allowed to enter.Baloch said an increasing number of Afghans who have arrived in Pakistan have been telling his colleagues their reasons for coming.“It is insecurity and their intention to seek asylum once they are here. But the movement, the back-and-forth movement is very mixed. A lot of trade going, commercial activities, many people come in terms of trying to seek medical attention on this side,” he said.Baloch said it is crucial Afghanistan not become a forgotten crisis, adding that the UNHCR is appealing to the world not to turn its attention away from the Afghan people.He said international support is needed to keep the Afghan people from leaving home. He appealed to the international community not to allow Afghanistan’s internal displacement crisis to become a humanitarian catastrophe.
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The Taliban are close to announcing their proposed Afghanistan government, which they say will seek friendly diplomatic ties with the United States, and the world at large, based on “mutual respect.”A senior Taliban official, Bilal Karimi, a member of the Cultural Commission, told VOA no date has been fixed for the announcement, but that it will be made “very soon.” He was responding to reports the Islamist movement would unveil its government Friday.The Taliban are under international scrutiny for delivery on pledges their governance system will represent all Afghan ethnic groups and respect human rights, particularly those of women, unlike their previous exclusive hardline regime in Kabul.Taliban Warn Against Future Invasions of Afghanistan, Seek Global Legitimacy Germany cautions against using military intervention to export a specific form of government to other countries”It will be an inclusive strong central and sustainable system or government. We already have very good relations with a large number of countries and we don’t expect any problems,” Karimi told VOA when asked if their proposed ruling arrangement would win them much-need international recognition.Britain stressed Friday it will hold the Taliban to their assurances, making sure that “deeds follow words.”Speaking in Pakistan, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain was keeping up with the “new realities” in Afghanistan and does not want to see the social and economic fabric of the country broken.”The approach that we are taking is, we don’t recognize the Taliban as a government, but we do see the importance of being able to engage and having a direct line of communication,” Raab said.  Karimi rejected as “incorrect” media reports that their political deputy, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the group, would be the leader of the new government and the proposed arrangement would be somewhat similar to that of neighboring Iran’s ruling system.  The Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital last month following stunningly swift military victories, taking control of 33 of the country’s 34 provinces in about a week.  The fundamentalist group regained power in Kabul nearly 20 years after the U.S.-led invasion of the country removed them from power for harboring al-Qaida leaders Washington blamed for the September 2001 terror strikes on America.The U.S. and other international lenders have suspended financial assistance programs for Afghanistan, linking resumption to the nature of the future Taliban government.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 11 MB480p | 15 MB540p | 19 MB720p | 42 MB1080p | 80 MBOriginal | 95 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioUS Reviewing Afghan Aid, Holding Off on Taliban RecognitionMultiple challenges face the war-ravaged and poverty-stricken South Asian nation, including growing humanitarian and economic crises.  U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday Washington remains “unwavering” in its commitment to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. Recognizing the Taliban, though, is linked to practical steps the future Afghan government would need to take.Price told reporters “the actions, especially vis-a-vis the areas we care profoundly about; that is: safe passage; respect for the rights of the people of Afghanistan, including women and girls and minorities; a government that is inclusive, a government that follows through on its counterterrorism commitments, and a government that respects the universal and international norms.”Karimi sounded upbeat about Kabul’s future ties with Washington.”The Islamic Emirate is keen to maintain good diplomatic, economic and trade relations with America on the basis of mutual respect and equality,” he said.
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Qatar’s foreign minister said Thursday that efforts are underway to reopen the airport in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, but cautioned it was unclear when flights would resume.Ariana Afghan Airlines told the Agence France-Presse that its domestic flights were set to resume Friday.  A group of technicians from Qatar and Turkey had flown to Kabul on Wednesday to help reopen the airport, which is a vital link to those still seeking to flee the war-torn country and to providing humanitarian aid. It was the first foreign aircraft to land at the airport since it closed the day before for unspecified reasons.Ross Wilson, the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, is reported to have contracted the coronavirus. He was the last U.S. diplomat to leave Kabul. Wilson worked out of Kabul’s airport, to help people through the process of exiting the country after the U.S. embassy closed. Wilson’s condition since the COVID-19 diagnosis was not immediately clear.Women gather to demand their rights under the Taliban rule during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 3, 2021.Women in the western Afghan city of Herat protested Thursday against the Taliban, chanting, “Don’t be afraid.” Afghan women fear the Taliban will reimpose restrictions on women like wearing burqas when in public and not allowing them to work or go to school.The U.N. World Food Program estimated last month that about one out of every three Afghans is in urgent need of food assistance.“We remain hopeful that we will be able to operate [the airport] as soon as possible,” said Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani. Sheikh Mohammed also emphasized the need for the Taliban to “demonstrate their commitment to provide safe passage and freedom of movement for the people of Afghanistan.”Qatar has close contacts with the Taliban and played a significant role in U.S. efforts to evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan.The foreign minister said Qatar is continuing talks with world powers to resume commercial flights at the airport. It remains to be seen whether any commercial airlines would be willing to provide service to Kabul when the airport reopens. Turkey, which Sheikh Mohammed said he hopes will provide technical assistance, said Thursday it was “evaluating” plans to reopen the airport proposed by the Taliban and others.Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said security “inside and outside” the airport remains the most important priority.Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Although U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan ended earlier this week, U.S. officials said Thursday there are still diplomatic and economic options for protecting the rights of Afghans under Taliban rule. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
Producer: Katherine Gypson
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It felt like hell itself had opened up, said Ramal Ahmadi, who was watching cartoons with his nephew when a U.S. drone slammed into his family’s courtyard where just moments before there had been a noisy celebration to greet the family’s oldest brother. The last thing Ahmadi remembers was the sound of his brother’s car horn announcing his arrival and the squealing of the children. He said his mind has been “not right” since that day. Sunday’s U.S. drone strike killed 10 members of his family, six of them children, Ahmadi said.  Senior U.S. military officials said the drone strike hit an Islamic State target and weakened the extremists’ ability to further disrupt the final phase of the U.S. withdrawal and evacuation of thousands of people from Afghanistan. Three days before the drone strike, an IS suicide bomber had attacked a crowded gate at Kabul airport, killing 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that at least one of those killed in the drone strike was an Islamic State “facilitator.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged the reports of civilian casualties on Thursday and said they were being investigated. Previously, American officials have noted that subsequent explosions resulted from the destruction of the vehicle and may have caused additional casualties. Explanation demandedBut an enraged Ahmadi family is demanding proof — and disputes that the car was carrying explosives.  “They have to give us answers. Is our blood so worthless, we don’t even get an explanation?” Ahmadi asked.  Analysts warned that the risk of civilian casualties during drone strikes will only grow, now that the U.S. no longer has on-the-ground intelligence. Ramal Ahmadi, right, speaks during an interview with AP about a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 2, 2021. Ahmadi said the strike killed 10 members of his family.Inside the courtyard of the family home, Emal, another Ahmadi brother, recently picked through the twisted ruins of the devastated hulk of the Toyota Corolla. Inside was a blood-soaked child’s shirt. He said some family members, including children, were in the car when it was hit. He contended that if there had been a bomb in the vehicle there would be far more damage to the courtyard and house. He pointed to two undamaged gas cylinders tucked away in a corner of the courtyard. “If the car was filled with explosives like the Americans say, why didn’t these cylinders explode,” asked Emal. He also pointed to a shoddily constructed brick wall near the gutted car. “How could the wall still be standing if this car had been full of explosives?” But American officials, including some who watched the strike in real-time on video feeds, said the U.S. had been watching the car for several hours and saw people loading explosives into the trunk. The compound in Kabul’s Khoja Boghra neighborhood was home to four Ahmadi brothers and their families — 25 people in all. The roads that weave through the middle-class neighborhood pass homes hidden behind high walls and gates.  For the Ahmadis, the accusation that their family was involved with the Islamic State group is a devastating one. “If you have proof, I say, ‘Go ahead kill me,’ but show me the proof,” said Emal, whose 3-year-old daughter, Malika, was among the dead.  FILE – Afghans inspect damage to the Ahmadi family house after a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 29, 2021.Their oldest brother, Zamarai, and a nephew, Nasir Haideri — both of whom were killed in the strike — had worked for U.S. government-allied firms and had applied for Special Immigrant Visas granted to Afghans with such ties to the U.S. They were being processed at the time of the strike. Soon to marryEmal said Nasir, 30, who was to have been married just days after the strike, had dreamed of going to America.  The surviving brothers showed the commendation letters the relatives had included in their submissions for the visas. Emal, who has also applied for one of the visas, said he struggled to understand why the family compound was struck. “They have such high technology they can see an ant on the ground, but they couldn’t see a yard full of children?” he asked. Milley said Sunday’s strike was based on good intelligence, including a review of video. “We monitored that through various means and all of the engagement criteria were being met,” he said. “We went through the same level of rigor that we’ve done for years and we took a strike.” Psaki pushed back against the idea that a lack of solid on-the-ground intelligence is hampering the United States. She said that there are many countries where the U.S. has no military presence on the ground, “but we can still prevent terrorist groups from metastasizing and posing threats.” But Douglas London, who served as the CIA’s counterterrorism chief overseeing the region before retiring in 2019, said the strike and resulting deaths “really illustrates our handicap by having no presence on the ground to collect the best quality and most timely intelligence.” Not having U.S. or long-trained Afghan partner forces on the ground also foreclosed other possibilities, like potentially stopping the car before it entered a crowded residential area, he said. “A strike in a congested area would have been the last choice we would have made,” said London, author of the forthcoming book, The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence. 
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Turkey is stepping up a border security barrier with Iran, primarily to thwart a possible large influx of refugees from entering Afghanistan. Yet for many refugees, the wall, trenches and barbed wire are just more obstacles they say they have no choice but to overcome. VOA’s Heather Murdock has this report from Van, Tatvan and the Turkish border with Iran.Camera: Yan Boechat. Contributing: Mohammad Mahdi Sultani.
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More than 100 USAGM employees and contractors are still in Afghanistan along with their families despite assurances from the U.S. State and Defense departments that they would be evacuated during the Kabul airlift that ended Monday.Acting Director of Voice of America Yolanda Lopez, who has been working with USAGM management to get the journalists and their families out of Afghanistan, released a statement Thursday saying the agency is still doing everything it can to help those who wish to leave the country.“We are incredibly disappointed that our efforts over the past few weeks to get our colleagues safe passage out of Afghanistan have been unsuccessful. We have been working day and night, pursuing every available option, only to hit countless obstacles and roadblocks,” she wrote.“These men and women are part of our VOA family, and we will not be deterred by these setbacks.”FILE – State Department spokesperson Ned Price speaks during a media briefing at the State Department, July 7, 2021.On Thursday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during a news briefing that the department did everything it could to prioritize the journalists’ departure first on a U.S. military plane and then charter flights. But he said the plan changed after the Kabul airport was hit by a suicide bomber.“We were working on their safe evacuation just as the attack struck the airport perimeter. The operational environment changed markedly unfortunately. It stood in the way of our ability to bring these individuals to safety before August 31,” Price said.He said the department remains committed to the journalists but declined to share details of the guidance it is providing them and others still hoping to leave the country.The Taliban have given public assurances that those Afghans who wish to leave the country and have valid travel documents will be able to leave.But the group has a track record of targeting journalists.Journalists also are at risk from militant groups like Islamic State. At least four USAGM journalists have been killed in Afghanistan in the past three years, including Mohammad Ilyas Dayee, who was assassinated in November 2020.“We remain committed to continuing to do everything we can to help all of our journalists and their families who wish to leave the country and get them to safety,” Lopez said in an email sent to VOA staff. USAGM officials working with the U.S. government and other groups to evacuate the journalists and their families over the past two weeks have not spoken out about the situation or provided details, to avoid jeopardizing the safety of those in the country.In an interview with the Society of Professional Journalists, Acting Director Lopez said the journalists remain under threat.“We want to take the Taliban leaders at their word, but in recent days, we have confirmed Taliban attempts to round up several of our journalists in hiding and several instances of violence against their family members,” she said, without elaborating.Voice of America’s Afghan service has been broadcasting news and information to the country since 1980, and it was the last Western news organization to interview the Taliban’s former leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in 2001 on the eve of the U.S. invasion.
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Qatar’s foreign minister said Thursday that efforts are underway to reopen the airport in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, but cautioned it was unclear when flights would resume. A group of technicians from Qatar and Turkey flew to Kabul on Wednesday to help reopen the airport, which is a vital link to those still seeking to flee the war-torn country and to providing humanitarian aid. It was the first foreign aircraft to land at the airport since it closed the day before for unspecified reasons. The U.N. World Food Program estimated last month that about one out of every three Afghans are in urgent need of food assistance. FILE – A commercial airplane is seen at the Hamid Karzai International Airport a day after U.S troops withdrawal in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 31, 2021.”We remain hopeful that we will be able to operate it as soon as possible,” said Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.  Sheikh Mohammed also emphasized the need for the Taliban to “demonstrate their commitment to provide safe passage and freedom of movement for the people of Afghanistan.” Qatar has close contacts with the Taliban and played a significant role in U.S. efforts to evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan. The foreign minister said Qatar is continuing talks with world powers to resume commercial flights at the airport. It remains to be seen whether any commercial airlines would be willing to provide service to Kabul when the airport reopens.  Turkey, which Sheikh Mohammed said he hopes will provide technical assistance, said Thursday it was “evaluating” plans to reopen the airport proposed by the Taliban and others. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said security “inside and outside” the airport remains the most important priority. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
 
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When the U.S. ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan this week, the Biden administration underscored the success of the evacuation effort from Hamid Karzai International Airport.”No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history,” said President Joe Biden from the White House on Tuesday, the day the U.S. completed its Afghan military withdrawal.The administration has said the massive airlift evacuated most of the remaining Americans in the country, as well as thousands of Afghan interpreters, activists, journalists and other groups that have been targeted by the Taliban.But thousands of others are left behind. Frustrated U.S. diplomats, military officials and civilian personnel involved in the effort tell VOA it was a haphazard process that left out many people who qualified for evacuation.Haseeb Kamal and his wife were married August 14th, the day before Kabul fell. She did not make it through the airport gate. (Courtesy photo)He pleaded with the Marines to allow his father and sister to join him on a flight despite them only having Afghan documents and none of the typical U.S. paperwork required for entry.”Don’t you dare kick them out (of the airport),” Kamal said to the Marines, who finally allowed them to stay.Kamal and his sister, Bibi Sara, are now living with family in the U.S. state of Virginia, while their father is still being processed in Fort Lee, a military base in the same state.’Ever-changing rules’Rules about which individuals could evacuate were “ever-changing,” said a diplomatic source on the ground who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity. That meant family members of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, as well as Special Immigrant Visa applicants, may have been allowed into the airport one day, but not the next.”What constituted as proper documentation changed nightly,” he said.The diplomat said that on at least one day during the early phase of evacuation, local staff of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were given instructions via email to go to the East Gate. Their extended families were processed despite lacking documentation such as Afghan passports, national IDs, or SIV applications, and whether they had “credible fear” of retaliation by the Taliban. As long as they said they were local embassy staff or their families, individuals were able to get in, he said.It was easy to confirm who is an embassy staff member, the diplomat said, but family connections were more difficult to determine.”These guys who have come in with large extended families, members with weak documentation … how do you vet that?” the officer said, adding that sometimes groups were waived through nevertheless.”We had to make a quick moral calculus – send them back out to the Taliban check point and potentially in danger or move them forward.”Those who were not U.S. citizens, permanent residents or holders of valid visas were sent to third countries referred to as “lily-pads” to be vetted.On other days, stricter guidelines meant extended families including parents and siblings of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents were not allowed entry. At points where people were screened, some officers followed the rule while others were more relaxed, he said.On Monday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby defended the work of the troops.”Without speaking to these reports, the Marines and the soldiers that for the last couple of weeks have been helping consular officers man the gates and process them did heroic work,” Kirby told VOA. “And they had to make decisions in real time about trying to help people get out.””A lot of lives were saved, and a lot of lives are now in a better place,” Kirby said.Many lives were saved, in some instances possibly because the rules were so flexible at times. Haseeb Kamal, the former interpreter, said he met a family with only two U.S. citizens who brought 30 people in with them.”I had no information that I could bring all of my family,” Kamal said. “What shocked me was how they knew.”Hundreds of people gather, some holding documents, on Aug. 26, 2021, near an evacuation control checkpoint on the perimeter of Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan.After Kabul’s fall, around the clock missionA State Department spokesperson defended the Kabul airlift, telling VOA that “the Biden administration has demonstrated, in the face of significant challenges, its sacrosanct commitment to the thousands of brave Afghans who have stood-by-side with the United States over the course of the past two decades.”After Kabul fell to the Taliban, the State Department flew diplomats from around the world to the Afghan capital. Diplomats and American troops worked around the clock to evacuate as many Americans and vulnerable Afghans as they could.An American civilian source on the ground who witnessed the evacuation said their efforts were “remarkable.” “Their empathy and humanity was admirable,” he said.A U.S. Marine carries a baby during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 28. (US Marine Corps photo)However aid groups which were involved say despite the massive effort by diplomats and soldiers, the airlift was plagued by problems.”There appears to be at best very problematic and at worst no rhyme or reason for who’s getting into the gates,” said Mark Jacobson, who helped organize evacuees. Jacobson served in 2006 in Afghanistan as a naval intelligence officer and from 2009-2011 as the deputy NATO representative and deputy political adviser at the International Security Assistance Force.”For those of us who are helping to get Afghans out, it does certainly appear as though the SOP (standard operating procedure) doesn’t just change day to day but hour to hour,” Jacobson said.Jacobson said the inconsistencies were partly due to the multiple departments involved.”When we get to our State people, they say it’s DOD. When we get to the DOD people they say it’s State,” Jacobson said referring to departments of State and Defense.VOA asked the White House whether inconsistent policies and a lack of coordination between the State Department and the Pentagon resulted in vulnerable Afghans left behind while those who were not at-risk individuals were evacuated.”I have no confirmation of what you’ve just outlined,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. “What I will tell you is that 117,000, approximately — many of them Afghans who — people who are not American citizens — were evacuated. That’s more people than ever in any airlift in U.S. history.”In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, an aircrew prepares to load qualified evacuees aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft as part of evacuation efforts at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2021.The administration has not provided a full breakdown of evacuee nationalities and their immigration status. On Wednesday the White House said that 77 percent of the evacuees that have arrived in the U.S. since August 17 were Afghans including “SIV and other visa holders, SIV applicants, P-1 and P-2 referrals, and others.”State Department spokesman Ned Price said a total of 31,107 people arrived in the U.S. from Afghanistan between August 17 and August 31.Warren Binford, a law professor at the University of Colorado, was part of a remote, entirely digital network of volunteers who, she estimates, assisted 1,400 Afghans in getting out.”The State Department had been put in charge of an evacuation from a warzone,” she said, contending that as a result the military did not have the full command of the operation. They learned to “pivot and adapt on a constant ongoing basis”, she said.Another individual, who asked not to be named because he wanted to protect the Afghans he is still trying to evacuate, described the evacuation process as “chaos.”A convoy of 130 people he organized was turned away after waiting for 18 hours. The plane took off without them, their seats empty.Another source, a former U.S. government official assisting evacuation who also asked not to be named, confirmed that the majority of Afghans in their group who were direct family members of American citizens (e.g. children, spouses) were turned away, even when their names were on flight manifests.The Marines blocking them said their orders from the State Department were to only allow American citizens and legal permanent residents. The former official said that should not have been the rule for charter flights for authorized individuals who are identified as at-risk, such as humanitarian organization employees, SIVs, women leaders, and their families.”Why isn’t the manifest being shared at the gate?” the former official lamented, also confirming that many of the privately arranged flights left with no one on board.The private group sources said the likelihood of evacuation depended in part on luck and on contacts inside the airport and in Washington, and who can get them past Taliban check points, past the Marines at the airport gates, into the terminal, on the tarmac and eventually on planes heading to safety.”It’s like The Hunger Games,” the former government official source said.One such group of hundreds of Afghans were rescued by the “Pineapple Express” – a secret mission run by U.S. military veterans who defied orders to stay within the security perimeter and scooped up their Afghan allies outside of the airport in a daring operation first reported by ABC News.”What is making us so incredibly sad is the seriously at-risk Afghans who don’t have the privilege of those connections, that are being left behind,” the former government official source said.Afghans wait in long lines for hours to try to withdraw money, in front of Bank in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 30, 2021. The Taliban have limited weekly withdrawals to $200.’Haunted’ by choicesA senior State Department official involved in the evacuation on the ground said they had the legal obligation to prioritize Americans. The operation involved “some really painful trade-offs” and officers are “haunted by the choices we had to make, and by the people we were not able to help depart,” the official said.Administration officials have repeatedly said that U.S. commitment to evacuate the potentially thousands or more vulnerable Afghans, as well as the remaining 200 or so individuals who self-identify as Americans and want to leave, is “enduring.””We will have means and mechanisms of having diplomats on the ground being able to continue to process out those applicants and facilitate passage of other people who want to leave Afghanistan,” Jen Psaki said Monday.One interpreter, who submitted his SIV application in 2014 and whose former U.S. Army colleagues enlisted three U.S. Senators to try to get him evacuated, is now in limbo after he and his wife and seven children failed to gain access to the airport.Jamshid, who did not give his real name for fear of retribution, told VOA that he traveled from outside of Kabul and spent 11 days trying to get inside the airport before giving up.”For now we are doing well,” he said. “But me and my family are worrying about our safety… because I have worked four years with U.S. army as interpreter.”On Sunday, the United States and 97 other countries announced the Taliban has assured them that foreign nationals and Afghans with visas from those countries will be allowed out of the country after the August 31 deadline. The Taliban released a statement saying all airports will be open to allow those who wish to leave Afghanistan.The day after the U.S. withdrawal, Jamshid received an email from the U.S. State Department assuring him that the U.S. will continue efforts to help them. The email instructed SIV applicants who want to transfer their case to an embassy or consulate outside of Afghanistan to submit their inquiry online.The success of that effort will depend in part on the willingness of the Taliban to help their former battlefield enemies.”It’s not easy to go to a third country,” Jamshid said.VOA’s Nike Ching, Carolyn Presutti, Anita Powell, Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
 
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Indian authorities cracked down on public movement and imposed a near-total communications blackout in disputed Kashmir on Thursday after the death of Syed Ali Geelani , a top separatist leader who became the emblem of the region’s defiance against New Delhi.Geelani, who died late Wednesday at age 92, was buried in a local graveyard in a quiet funeral organized by authorities under harsh restrictions, his son, Naseem Geelani, told The Associated Press. He said the family had planned to bury him at the main martyrs’ graveyard in Srinagar, the region’s main city, as specified in his will but were not allowed to do so by police.Geelani, Kashmir’s Staunchest Anti-India Leader, Dies At 92He lived the final decade of his life mostly under house arrest “They snatched his body and forcibly buried him. Nobody from the family was present for his burial. We tried to resist but they overpowered us and even scuffled with women,” Naseem Geelani said.The Press Trust of India news agency reported that officials buried Geelani’s body and prohibited any mass funeral in anticipation of anti-India protests.As most Kashmiris remained locked inside their homes, police and soldiers patrolled the tense region. Government forces placed steel barricades and razor wire across many roads, bridges and intersections and set up additional checkpoints in towns and villages in the Kashmir Valley.Authorities shut down most cellphone networks and mobile internet service in a common tactic employed by India to head off mass protests.Geelani spearheaded Kashmir’s movement for the right to self-determination and was a staunch proponent of merging Kashmir with Pakistan. He strongly opposed any dialogue with New Delhi, a position rejected by successive Indian governments who often dubbed him a hard-line politician.Geelani was also the face of Kashmir’s civilian defiance against Indian rule. He led a faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an association of various Kashmiri political and religious groups that was formed in 1993 to spearhead a movement for the region’s self-determination.The group used civil disobedience in the form of shutdowns and protests as a tactic to counter Indian rule.For many in Kashmir and beyond, Geelani was an enduring icon of defiance against India.Farmer Mohammed Akbar said Geelani’s death filled him with remorse but also anger after he learned that Geelani’s body had been buried by authorities who excluded Kashmiris and his extended family from participating in the last rites.“They are looking at ways to humiliate us,” Akbar said as he held his grandson in his arms. “They are even scared of dead Geelani.”Pakistan observed a day of official mourning and flags flew at half-staff on orders by Prime Minister Imran Khan. Its foreign ministry condemned the non-public burial by Indian authorities.“Pakistan strongly condemns the barbaric act of snatching of the mortal remains of the iconic Kashmiri leader” by Indian police, the ministry said in a statement in Islamabad.It said the Indian government was “so afraid of Syed Geelani and what he stood for that they have now resorted to this inhuman act even after his passing away. This shows the degree of callousness on part of the Occupation Forces.”Kashmir has long been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan, which both claim the region in full but rule only parts.Rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.New Delhi accuses Pakistan of sponsoring Kashmiri militants, a charge Pakistan denies. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.Tensions flared in the region in 2019 after New Delhi stripped Kashmir’s semi-autonomy, scrapped its statehood and removed inherited protections on land and jobs. Authorities have since brought a slew of new laws, which many critics and Kashmiris liken to the beginning of settler colonialism.
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Syed Ali Geelani, an icon of disputed Kashmir’s resistance against Indian rule and a top separatist leader who became the emblem of the region’s defiance against New Delhi, died late Wednesday. He was 92.Geelani died surrounded by family members at his home in Srinagar, the region’s main city, an aide and his relative told The Associated Press.Shortly after the news broke, scores of Kashmiris converged at his home in the Hyderpora neighborhood of Srinagar to mourn the death of Geelani, who lived the final decade of his life mostly under house arrest and suffered from various ailments.Authorities announced a communication blockade and the restriction of public movement, a common tactic employed by Indian officials in anticipation of anti-India protests. They swiftly deployed heavy contingents of armed police and soldiers across the Kashmir valley to prevent people from participating in Geelani’s funeral.Troops with automatic rifles also blocked roads leading to Geelani’s residence, while armored vehicles patrolled the city neighborhoods. Despite restrictions, many mosques across the region’s towns and villages blared announcements of Geelani’s death and urged people to come out on the streets.Strong stance on IndiaGeelani was an ideologue and a staunch proponent of the merger of Kashmir with Pakistan. Over the years, he had repeatedly said no to any talks with New Delhi, asserting that “India can’t be trusted unless it calls Kashmir a disputed territory, demilitarizes the region and releases political prisoners for a meaningful dialogue.”The position was rejected outright by subsequent Indian governments, and he was often dubbed as a hardline politician.Kashmir has known little but conflict since 1947, when British rule of the subcontinent divided the territory between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim the region in its entirety and have fought two wars over it.Kashmir’s fury at Indian rule has long been seething. After a series of political blunders, broken promises and a crackdown on dissent, Kashmiri activists launched a full-blown armed revolt against Indian rule in 1989.India describes the armed rebellion as Islamabad’s proxy war and state-sponsored terrorism. Most Muslim Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle and support the rebel goal that the territory be united, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.The region is one of the most heavily militarized in the world. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the raging conflict.The face of Kashmiri resistanceGeelani, an Islamist author and a fiery orator, began his career as a schoolteacher and later joined Kashmir’s biggest religious and political party Jamat-e-Islami in the 1950s. He contested elections three times for local governance but resigned as a lawmaker to join the anti-India campaign in the late 1980s, becoming the face of Kashmiri resistance until his death.He spent nearly 15 years in various Indian prisons and was also part of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of various Kashmiri political and religious groups that was formed in 1993 to spearhead a movement for the region’s right to self-determination. The group used civil disobedience in the form of shutdowns and protests as a tactic to counter Indian rule.In August 2019, when India stripped the region’s semi-autonomy, Indian authorities harshly clamped down on the group’s leaders, detaining scores of them and barring them from leading public protests.A sainted figure in Kashmir, Geelani’s popularity catapulted to near reverence after 2008, when the region witnessed mass civil uprisings and he emerged as a prominent resistance leader among the new generation of Kashmiris. In the years that followed, hundreds of youths were killed by Indian forces in street protests.As civilian defiance against Indian rule picked up, Geelani, along with two other top anti-India politicians, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who remain under detention, formed Joint Resistance Leadership in 2016. The group challenged India’s sovereignty over Kashmir and sought to give direction to people’s anger.Kashmiris venerated ‘Bub’During Kashmir’s recent years of civilian protests, the slogan “Na Jhukne Wala Geelani! Na Bikne Wala, Geelani! (Geelani, the one who doesn’t bow and can’t be bought!)” became almost a war cry on the streets. He was widely venerated by Kashmiris, who gave him a moniker of “Bub,” which means “the father.”“While his death has come from natural causes, we must remember the immense physical and psychological toll that his continuous detention and torture took on his health,” said Stand With Kashmir, a U.S.-based Kashmiri diaspora-led international solidarity group.Geelani was also widely respected by the region’s pro-India politicians.“We may not have agreed on most things, but I respect him for his steadfastness & standing by his beliefs,” Mehbooba Mufti, the region’s former top elected official, said on Twitter.Geelani’s maximalist approach forced India to court so-called moderate separatist leaders in Kashmir, though with no apparent breakthrough in resolving the dispute.Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was “deeply saddened” by Geelani’s death and the leader had “struggled all his life for his people & their right to self-determination.”Under Khan, Geelani was in 2020 awarded the Nishan-e-Pakistan,” Pakistan’s highest civilian honor, an award earlier received by the likes of Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro and Queen Elizabeth II.“We in Pakistan salute his courageous struggle & remember his words: ‘Hum Pakistani hain aur Pakistan Humara hai (We are Pakistani and Pakistani is ours),’” Khan said in a tweet.Khan said his country will observe a day of official mourning on Thursday and the Pakistan flag will fly at half-staff.“Without doubt, Geelani was emblematic of our defiance of India that began in 1990,” said Siddiq Wahid, historian and former vice chancellor of a Kashmir university. “That is his legacy.” 
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They beat the odds and won a chance to legally immigrate to the United States under a lottery visa program for nationals from countries with low numbers of immigrants to the U.S.But after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan followed by the American military withdrawal completed on Monday, these once-lucky Afghans fear they may never be able to leave their country.After 20 years of war in Afghanistan spanning four American presidencies, the U.S. government slammed the door on the last evacuation flights of civilian Afghans last weekend, leaving behind hundreds of these diversity visa winners.S., a 27-year-old former women’s rights advocate living in Kabul, is among them.Due to safety concerns, she asked VOA not to share her full name.She was first informed by the U.S. government in 2020 that she had won a spot in the diversity visa program, commonly known as the green card lottery. Under the Immigration Act of 1990, Congress approved the program to increase the diversity among immigrants to the United States.At first, she was excited.S. said she was excited when she learned she was among the 55,000 randomly selected people chosen annually from around the world. But there was plenty of paperwork and documentation to provide, and interviews and background checks conducted by U.S. Embassy officials.S. told VOA she filed all the required paperwork and was waiting for an interview at the U.S. Embassy, a process that usually took a few months.“When I received the letter [from the U.S. government], I was very, very happy. And I was a master’s degree student,” she explained.Because of her advocacy work, and fear the Taliban might go after her, S. decided to move in with her brother. And then her hopes for final approval were dashed.“Unfortunately, the [U.S.] embassy in Kabul closed [on Aug. 31] … We don’t know where to go for interviews or where to get our visas. … In Afghanistan, we’re at risk. … And it’s really worrying us about our lives. … But I will keep trying to leave Afghanistan,” she said in an audio message.Program’s turbulent track recordLong before S. and others suffered this major setback, the diversity visa program had a turbulent track record.In 2017, then-President Donald Trump announced a series of actions that blocked people from Muslim-majority countries from coming to the United States. Then in March 2020, Trump shut down consulates around the world because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration followed that by announcing a ban on certain immigrant visas, arguing that it was needed to protect the American economy.As a result, hundreds of Afghan winners of the visa lottery were prevented from coming to the U.S. at that time.According to a U.S. government document, once consulates began to reopen in the summer of 2020, officials were ordered to process diversity visas last.Immigrant advocates sued. Earlier this month, a federal judge decided the U.S. government must keep on processing lottery visa winners. On Aug. 17, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the Biden administration to issue 9,095 diversity visas from Fiscal Year 2020.Yet, Biden administration lawyers said in court the administration would not be able to deal with applications until the fall of 2022, at the earliest.Lottery visasWhile the 1990 immigration law was designed to increase diversity among immigrants to the United States, those interested in applying to the program had to have at least a high school degree or two years of work experience in a profession that required a minimum of two years of training.Winners usually receive an email or letter in July notifying them they won. Then they submit a complete application and must attend an interview at the beginning of the federal fiscal year, by Oct. 1, at the closest U.S. consulate. And because visa eligibility does not transfer to the following year, the entire process must be done in a year.According to the latest figures from the U.S. State Department, more than 13 million people applied last year.The unluckiest ones of allBut in the program’s 30-year history, winners in the last few years may have been the unluckiest of all.H., a 33-year-old Afghan diversity visa winner, said despite sending all documents necessary he and his family have been waiting for a visa interview for a year.“There is no hope for life in this country anymore,” he told VOA in a text message.A State Department spokesperson told VOA by email Wednesday that although the U.S. government is “currently” unable to provide consular services for immigrant visas in Afghanistan, they are developing alternative ways so officials can continue to “deliver this important service for the people of Afghanistan.”“Immigrant visa applicants should continue monitoring official U.S. government websites, including travel.state.gov, for updated information,” the spokesperson said.H. said because of the work he did assisting U.S. officials and the former Afghan government prosecuting criminals, his whole family is currently in hiding. He said only his wife or mother-in-law goes out to buy food when the family needs basic supplies.“I have written [you] the reality of my life. … I wish the visa interview would be online and electronically, so that we can travel comfortably to our new life and home,” H. said in a text message. 
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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was the first Cabinet member to take questions from reporters since the end of America’s longest war, joined at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday by the top U.S. general. As VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports, the U.S. isn’t completely done with Afghanistan.
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The United States is not ruling out potentially working with the Taliban to counter the threat from the Islamic State terror group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, though officials cautioned against expecting much help.“It’s possible,” General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, taking questions for the first time since the last U.S. troops left Afghanistan.“We don’t know what the future of the Taliban is, but I can tell you from personal experience that this is a ruthless group, from the past, and whether or not they change remains to be seen,” Milley added.Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also sought to downplay the possibility of working with the Taliban when it comes to Islamic State-Khorasan, as the group is known, despite coordination between U.S. troops and Taliban commanders during the recent U.S. evacuation from Kabul.“We were working with the Taliban on a very narrow set of issues, and it was just there to get as many people out as we possibly could,” Austin said.“I would not make any leaps of logic,” he added.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 30 MB1080p | 57 MBOriginal | 69 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioDespite a lack of trust between the U.S. and the Taliban after 20 years of combat, questions about whether the Taliban might cooperate when it comes to IS-Khorasan have persisted. One reason has been their apparent willingness to coordinate with the U.S. on security at the Kabul airport as the withdrawal and evacuation drew to a close. Additionally, both the U.S. and the Taliban see the IS affiliate as a mutual enemy.There is even some recent history.Just over a year and a half ago, the Taliban ousted IS-Khorasan from strongholds in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces with what was described as “very limited support” from the U.S.“We suspended actively pursuing Taliban units engaged with ISIS-K,” a military official said on the condition of anonymity at the time, using another acronym for the IS affiliate.“We also conducted some strikes on known ISIS-K locations,” the official added, cautioning “those strikes were not coordinated with the Taliban.”US Admits Taliban Offensive Is Whittling IS’s Grip on AfghanistanCounterterror and military officials say IS-Khorasan is losing its hold on some rural areas but caution it has been pushed to the brink before and bounced backBut now that IS-Khorasan no longer holds any territory, and the Taliban are in control, there are those who think the Taliban will be reluctant to accede to many requests from Washington.“Where it suits them, they’ll be aggressive against ISIS-K,” a U.S. official told VOA on condition of anonymity due to the delicate situation on the ground. “They’re not going to do it for our benefit.”The Taliban made commitments as part of its February 2020 deal with the U.S. to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terror attacks against America and the West. However, their actions as they retook control of the country, including the release of veteran IS-Khorasan officials from Afghan prisons, have raised doubts.“We would assess that probably there are at least 2,000 hardcore ISIS fighters in Afghanistan now and of course many of those come from the prisons that were opened  a few days ago,” General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said this past Monday.Some intelligence agencies have also warned that, despite being natural enemies, the Taliban have been making use of the IS-Khorasan when it serves their agenda.Al-Qaida, IS Set to Reconstitute in Afghanistan, BeyondFear of terror revival grows as US troop withdrawSpecifically, counterterrorism officials point to signs the Taliban were using the semi-autonomous Haqqani terrorist network to help plan and direct IS-Khorasan attacks against Afghan government targets in Kabul.And despite U.S. coordination with the Taliban, last Thursday IS-Khorasan still managed to kill 13 American troops and at least 169 Afghans in a suicide bombing at the gates of the Kabul airport.Days later, the group launched an unsuccessful rocket attack against the airport.U.S. officials said a third attack was likely averted after a U.S. drone strike this past Sunday, which killed an alleged IS-Khorasan facilitator who was said to be loading explosives into his vehicle.NEW: US drone strike in #Kabul w/alleged civilian deaths-“At the time we had very good intelligence” per @thejointstaff’s Gen Milley “At least one of those ppl that were killed was an #ISIS facilitator” he adds, admitting others were killed but US doesn’t know who they were— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) September 1, 2021For now, U.S. officials are willing to keep the lines of communication with the Taliban open.“We will continue to have conversations that serve our interest, as will our allies and partners,” Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told reporters Wednesday.“They claim to be able to control the security of Afghanistan. We’ll see if that is the case,” Nuland said. 
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Torie Fisher offered her cavernous Backward Flag Brewing Co. in the Jersey Shore community of Forked River as a collection center for donations to Afghan refugees, who had arrived at the nearby U.S. air base.  “It’s just the human thing to do. They are humans like us,” said Fisher, an Army veteran who served in Iraq as a Black Hawk crew chief and door gunner, and an “Army brat” who was born in Fort Polk, Louisiana. Brett Behrens, a police officer for Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, and a former counterintelligence contractor in Afghanistan, was one of the first to help out after seeing a post by a fellow police officer.  “A lot of the people there are really decent people,” Behrens told VOA, describing the Afghans he met during his 27-month tour. “They weren’t able to pack. They don’t have jobs. They don’t have homes. They don’t have anything.”  After word got out on social media that donations were being accepted at New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, one of seven domestic U.S. bases housing Afghan refugees, many residents offered up clothing, water and household goods. They said they wanted to provide anything to help the refugees, many of whom had arrived with only the clothes they were wearing.  “I think it’s the humane thing to do. I don’t know how to say this, but it wasn’t right what was done. I don’t believe in the way we are pulling out of Afghanistan,” said Roselinda Brown, who, along with her husband, Thomas Brown, came to the brewery with donations of winter clothes. She told VOA she was also motivated because her nephew had served in Afghanistan.  Thomas and Roselinda Brown donated winter clothes to Afghan refugees, who had arrived at the nearby U.S. air base.”We are a very fortunate country to have the freedoms that we have. The people who were helping us in Afghanistan were kind of thrown under the bus by our administration,” said Thomas Brown, who described himself as a conservative Republican. “They are looking for the freedoms that we have here in this country. I feel like if you can help, you should.”  But other Americans are vexed about the government bringing refugees to the U.S.  “We have veterans living on sidewalks, we have homeless areas where even children are living in tents. Who is rescuing them?” asked local resident Marena Agnoli in a social media message.  FILE – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, leaves the Capitol in Washington, Aug. 5, 2021.Some politicians and lawmakers are asking the same questions. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and others assert that some of the refugees are going off base, a fear echoed by some Americans living near U.S. bases where refugees have been housed since being airlifted from Afghanistan.  Some Americans who opposed bringing the refugees to the U.S. said they were concerned about the spread of the coronavirus and whether the refugees were vetted well enough to guarantee that no Taliban terrorists would be mixed among the genuinely needy. Others worried about U.S. tax dollars being spent on international rather than domestic needs.  “Now we have hundreds of homeless people in Louisiana due to the hurricane,” Agnoli, who lives in New Jersey, the state that pays the third-highest taxes on earnings in the U.S., wrote to VOA. “Shouldn’t we rescue our homeless and poor before we take on foreigners? We have hundreds of illegal immigrants pouring into our country, can we support all of them? Will higher taxes make us homeless?” White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Sept. 1, 2021.In a press conference on Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed some of these concerns: “There is a process that includes not just a thorough background check and vetting process, but as individuals come to the United States, some will end up going to military bases, where they will have access to a range of resources, including vaccines.”  Psaki said about 120,000 people had been airlifted from Afghanistan in the past few weeks, including 5,500 U.S. citizens.  “We are leveraging and working with all of the incredible refugee resettlement organizations around the country who are eager and open to helping these Afghan refugees. Also to veterans’ organizations who are eager and open to helping these Afghan refugees resettle in the United States and work through as orderly a process, using every lever of government — from the U.S. military, the Department of Homeland Security — to move this process as rapidly as we can,” Psaki said.  “I’m sorry, but I do not trust that a good portion of (bad actors) are among the refugees,” said Samantha Keane, who lives within an hour from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and supports the airlifting of Afghan women and children. She fears for the future of the female refugees, she said, who will be responsible for themselves and their children once they leave the base and will be treated poorly in Afghan enclaves — or by Americans who see only a backwards culture in relation to women’s rights. “They will be discriminated against once in the communities. People have zero clue about the history these women and children have endured,” said Keane, who wrote her college thesis about Afghan women.  Behrens said he understands the skepticism and resentment among Americans. “If you can’t do something to help, you can’t. You can’t donate to every single charity that’s out there,” he said. “Some people have mixed feelings. There’s homeless people here. But if people don’t do it strictly because they are Afghans …” he said, trailing off.  “There are plenty of Afghan nationals that have done more for the United States military than most Americans, who have literally never done anything besides post something on social media or complain about something and do nothing about it,” Behrens said.  “They have all these opinions about a region that they’ve never been to, about people they’ve never seen or talked to, or they have legitimately no idea what they’re talking about.”  The owner of Backward Flag Brewing Co. in New Jersey received a mixed response to her offer the space be used as a collection center for donations for Afghan refugees.Fisher, the Backward Flag Brewing Co. founder, admits to receiving hate mail along with an inbox full of offers to donate.  “The response has been mixed. Some people have this idea that they are coming here to leech off our country,” Fisher told VOA.  But the brewery has been filled with and emptied of donations several times, and they continue to roll in. “A lot of those people are our allies,” Fisher said. “They helped our soldiers, our military, to complete their mission. And the people that have come here are those people and their families. … We should say ‘thank you’ to them, not ‘send them back’ or ‘kick them out.'”  “Some people say, ‘There’s a risk. Some of them might be terrorists,'” she said. “It’s possible. But you know what? We also have that living in our country amongst us every day. The human thing to do is give these people sanctuary if we have the ability to do that.” Fisher emphasized the service that many Afghans had provided to the U.S. during the 20 years the country fought in Afghanistan.  “In my opinion, many of those people probably served our country a hell of a lot more than most people that actually live in this country,” she said.  
 
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Human rights groups are raising alarms on behalf of several hundred Afghan military personnel and their families who defected to Uzbekistan with almost four dozen aircraft as Taliban forces closed in on Kabul last month.Human Rights Watch and other organizations fear that Uzbek authorities will return the refugees to Afghanistan, where they would be vulnerable to retaliation from the nation’s new Taliban leaders.“Tashkent is obliged under international human rights law to not under any circumstances return people to a country where they could face torture or even death,” said Hugh Williamson, HRW’s director for Europe and Central Asia. The organization is also worried about hundreds of other Afghans who fled to Uzbekistan and are at risk of being sent back.Jennifer Murtazashvili, director at the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh, goes further, saying Washington should welcome these pilots to the United States by offering them asylum, just as it has done for other Afghan service members who were critical to the two-decade American war effort.“These U.S.-trained specialists already faced assassination before the Taliban took over,” Murtazashvili said.A total of 585 Afghan military personnel and their families flew to Uzbekistan in the final hours before the fall of Kabul on board 22 military aircraft and 24 helicopters. They were intercepted by Uzbek military aircraft, which forced them to land at an international airport in Termez, just across the border from Afghanistan.Plane collisionsAmid the confusion, two Uzbek and three Afghan planes were involved in midair collisions, sending debris raining over the city of Sherabad in Uzbekistan’s Surkhandarya region. All the pilots parachuted to safety, and there were no reports of casualties.Friendship Bridge over Amu-Darya River into northern Afghanistan, Termez, Uzbekistan.Now, Uzbekistan must decide whether to provide a haven for the refugees, send them back to Afghanistan or help them move to a third country. That decision is complicated by Tashkent’s desire to establish friendly relations with the new Taliban government without offending Western powers.So far, Uzbek authorities have been reluctant to discuss the matter. An initial statement from the General Prosecutor’s Office reporting the aircraft incidents was quickly withdrawn and deleted from social media pages on the ground that some details had not been fully confirmed.But a U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed to VOA that the personnel and aircraft “are secure and being housed” by Uzbek authorities. Washington is “coordinating with the government of Uzbekistan in response to Afghan Air Force aircraft, their pilots and others crossing into Uzbekistan,” the spokesperson said.Two Uzbek officials, talking to VOA on condition of anonymity, confirmed the State Department remarks.People cross a police checkpoint two kilometers from Friendship Bridge, which separates Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, near Termez, Uzbekistan, Aug. 14, 2021.Uzbekistan has maintained a delicate balancing act since the fall of the pro-Western government in Kabul, shutting its border to refugees and insisting on its determination to return Afghans to their country. At the same time, it has cooperated with the mass evacuation of U.S. and allied personnel by making its airport in Tashkent available for refueling stops on flights bound to Europe and other destinations.Initial praiseUzbekistan has won some praise for its willingness to assist in the evacuation. But according to HRW’s Williamson, “international goodwill would quickly disappear if Uzbekistan returns the pilots and their families” to a country now firmly in the grip of the Taliban.Tashkent’s singular priority, however, remains security, not enabling refugee flows. The government says it is in touch with the Taliban to ensure its border areas are safe. And the Foreign Ministry warned on Monday that anyone attempting to illegally enter Uzbekistan would be treated according to the law.“Currently, the Uzbek-Afghan border crossing is completely closed,” the ministry said on Monday, adding that the Termez crossing point would not reopen anytime soon.That flies in the face of Washington’s appeal for all of Afghanistan’s neighbors “to allow entry for Afghans and coordinate with humanitarian international organizations to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghans in need.”Relations between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan are further complicated by the presence in Afghanistan of a large ethnic Uzbek population whose members include Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum, a leader of the Northern Alliance that helped drive the Taliban from power in 2001.Reliable sources told VOA that Dostum fled to Uzbekistan as Kabul fell, along with Ata Muhammad Noor, the former governor of Afghanistan’s Balkh province. Uzbek officials insist that is not true, and the whereabouts of both men are uncertain.
 
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As the evacuation of tens of thousands from the airport in Kabul was underway, the attempted rescue of dozens of veterinary staff and hundreds of animals from a British animal rescue charity in Afghanistan caught the attention of the media. Their plight led to a heated dispute between the charity and the British government, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.Camera: Henry Ridgwell   Produced by: Marcus Harton 
 
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Schools in Indian have begun to reopen after being closed for more than a year as cases of COVID-19 have started to decline. The government gave the go-ahead for schools to reopen Tuesday in at least five states and union territories, including Delhi and Tamil Nadu. Schools did so cautiously, with strict COVID-19 protocols in place, including wearing masks, frequent hand washing, staggered lunch breaks, and limited seating capacity for social distancing in classrooms.India closed most schools, colleges, and other educational institutions in March of 2020, as the pandemic began in an effort to curb the spread of the deadly virus. While many schools in urban or high-income areas moved to online learning, that was not an option to students in rural and low-income areas. The U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF, says only one in four children in India have access to the internet and digital devices. Several reports and studies about Indian children during the pandemic found thousands of Indian children suffered learning loss, and they say a continued lack of in-person learning could create irreversible learning gaps.The government now says the recent dramatic overall decline in COVID-19 cases made it safe to begin reopening schools. India’s health ministry Wednesday reported 41,965 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours. In May, the daily rate peaked at more than 400,000.But some parents remain concerned about recent surges, and they fear a third wave of infections could hold back their children. Likewise, some private schools are waiting until October to begin in-person learning. 
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India has dramatically increased COVID-19 vaccination rates in its vast rural hinterland, where around 65% of the country’s nearly 1.4 billion people live. But supply constraints remain for the world’s largest maker of vaccines and experts say it’s unlikely India will reach its target of vaccinating all adults by the end of the year.India opened shots for all adults in May. But the campaign faltered in villages due to vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. That started changing in mid-July and of the nearly 120 million shots administered in the past three weeks, around 70% were in India’s villages — up from around half in the initial weeks of May.Although the increased vaccine acceptance in rural areas is promising, the pandemic is far from done in India: After weeks of steady decline, the 46,000 new infections reported Saturday was its highest in almost two months.Only about 11% of India’s vast population is fully vaccinated. Half of all adults and about 35% of the total population have received at least one shot. This has left large swathes of people still susceptible to the virus.Several nations, including the U.S. and Israel, are offering or plan to offer booster shots to people, deepening global vaccine inequity. India was expected to be a pivotal producer of shots to immunize the world but stopped exports after an explosion of infections. And while India had expected to get 1.35 billion shots in the final five months of 2021 to resolve its supply constraints, the question of whether Indian vaccine makers can scale up production to meet India’s needs will have global implications.“Currently in India, there is more demand than available supply…the supply of vaccines currently in use is lower than the projections made a few months ago. So both of these situations are putting constraints on availability of vaccines in the country,” said Dr. Chandrakant Lahariya, a vaccine policy expert.India is no stranger to mass immunizations, but this is the first time that shots are being given at this scale, and to adults. Officials have blended strategies that were successful in the past with newer, more localized innovations.Kamalawati, 65, a retired government accountant who goes by only her first name, lined up for a shot at Nizampur, a village outside New Delhi. She said people initially were concerned there would be harmful side effects but “people are not scared anymore.”What has worked for her village and others is a contest in which the local government awards a trophy to the village with the most vaccinated people and a plaque declaring the village the winner. Stickers are also pasted on homes where people are fully vaccinated to encourage neighbors to do the same. District administrator Saumya Sharma said the campaign banks on the sense of community and pride residents have in their village. “That this is our village. And we are going to make it No. 1,” she said.In Juggar, home to several thousand of the over 155 million people who live in rural parts of India’s Uttar Pradesh state, villagers refused the vaccine when health officials first arrived there, paramedic Ravi Sharma said. Only after family members of health workers got their shots in public view did others begin to get the vaccine.Millions of people from eastern Bihar state, one of India’s least urbanized, migrate to the Middle East for work. With international travel impossible without certificates showing full vaccination, more people are signing up for jabs, said Dr. R.K. Chaudhary, who is in charge of a rural health center in Phulwari Sharif village.These strategies rest on methods that have worked in past vaccination campaigns. Performers with drums and clad in traditional attire are fanning out to Indian villages to underline the importance of getting the shot. Several states have organized mobile vaccination centers, where shots are given at highly visible places in village squares. The government has also used WhatsApp, which is ubiquitous in India, to help people book appointments for vaccines.Public health experts say the uptick in rural vaccinations is important because health care systems in villages are fragile. The deadly surge of infections that overwhelmed hospitals earlier this year ripped through rural India and thousands died. Moreover, migrants from villages move to cities for work and until everyone is vaccinated, outbreaks and even the possibility of a dangerous new variant can’t be discounted, said Lahariya.India has the infrastructure to vaccinate up to 10 million people daily, but is averaging between 5 million and 6 million, he said.So far, nearly 90% of the vaccines administered were the AstraZeneca shots made by the Serum Institute of India. The government hopes to solve the supply constraints that have hamstrung the vaccination effort with new production lines as well as the approval of a new homemade vaccine and another in the pipeline.India hopes that Bharat Biotech will make around a third of the 1.3 billion shots it needs. The company has struggled so far in scaling up and while a new facility, capable of making 10 million shots monthly, began production last week, the company is looking for international manufacturing partners.The Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine was given the nod by Indian regulators in April but accounts for less than 1% of total vaccinations. The company has arranged with several Indian vaccine makers to start making shots locally, hopefully by later this month.India expects 100 million Sputnik V shots and 50 million shots of Indian drugmaker Zydus Cadila’s recently greenlit COVID-19 vaccine later this year.Apart from this, the regulator approved Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine in June and the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot in August. But it is unclear when they will be administered.Meanwhile, Moderna and Pfizer have been discussing the signing of indemnity waivers for their vaccines for weeks with India’s federal government. Unlike some other countries and the U.N.- backed COVAX initiative, India doesn’t have a mechanism in place for people who suffer rare side effects to seek compensation, said Lahariya. He said these discussions were an opportunity to reexamine accountability and create a system where people are protected.Lahariya warned that even though he expected supply to improve, it was unlikely that India would have enough shots to immunize all adults by the end of the year. “No matter what,” he said.
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