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'Go in together, go out together' - German defense minister says

© Michael Kappeler / Pool via Reuters
FILE PHOTO: German Bundeswehr soldiers in Masar-i-Scharif, Afghanistan.

Berlin has the second-largest military presence there after the US.

"We always said we go in together, we go out together," she told the broadcaster ARD in a morning interview. "I stand for an orderly withdrawal. And that's why I assume that we will decide this today."

The total strength of NATO's Resolute Support Mission is around 10,000.

Almost 1,800 civilians, including many women and children, were killed or wounded in the fighting between the Afghan government and the Taliban since the start of 2021, the UN said, again calling on the sides to stop the violence.

In the first three months of the year, 573 civilians were killed and 1,210 injured in Afghanistan, which is a 29% increase compared to the same period in 2020, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report on Wednesday.

A source of "particular concern" was that the number of killed or wounded women rose by 37%, while child casualties increased by 23%, according to the report.

The civilians became victims of "ground engagements; improvised explosive devices; and targeted killings," UNAMA said.

© Reuters / Mohammad Ismail
FILE PHOTO: Afghan officials inspect a damaged minibus after a blast in Kabul.

Insurgent groups have caused 61% percent of the casualties among the population, with the most harm delivered by Taliban (43.5%). Afghan National Army and other pro-government units were reportedly responsible for killing and wounding 27 percent of civilians so far this year.

"Every possible opportunity for peace must be seized. If levels of violence are not immediately reduced, thousands of Afghan civilians will continue to be killed and injured by fellow Afghans in 2021," Deborah Lyons, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, warned.

Note that the US' lengthy and costly stay in Afghanistan has resulted in the deaths of a great many civilians.

With no breakthrough in peace talks between the authorities in Kabul and the Taliban, deadly fighting has recently escalated in several Afghan regions.

"Until all foreign forces completely withdraw from our homeland, the Islamic Emirate [of Afghanistan] will not participate in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan," Dr. Muhammad Naeem Wardak, the spokesperson for the Taliban's political office in Doha, Qatar, said on Twitter early Wednesday morning.

© REUTERS / POOL

Biden's new date is symbolic: al-Qaeda's training grounds and headquarters for the attack were in the Afghan mountains, and the US occupation war in Afghanistan began just weeks later, when it invaded to overthrow the Taliban government that had sheltered the terrorist group. The war has waged ever since, with deaths totaling in the hundreds of thousands, nearly all of them Afghan.

Also on Tuesday, the United Nations announced an Afghan peace conference had been scheduled from April 24 to May in Istanbul, Turkey, at which delegations from the Taliban and the US-supported Afghan government in Kabul are expected to sit for their own peace talks, which have been ongoing for months. However, a spokesperson for the Taliban's political bureau told Sputnik on Tuesday the group's attendance was in doubt.

Last month, US and European officials revealed to the New York Times that there were at least 1,000 more troops in Afghanistan than previously reported, putting the total at the time at roughly 3,500 troops. In addition, there are roughly 7,000 troops from NATO allies and US partners in Afghanistan, which the Taliban has said would be considered legitimate targets for attack if the US hasn't totally left by its May 1 deadline.

Biden has previously spoken dismissively of the February 2020 peace deal, saying in an interview last month it was "not a very solidly negotiated deal" agreed to by then-US President Donald Trump.

"We're in consultation with our allies as well as the government, and that decision is in process now," he said about meeting the May 1 withdrawal date, which he admitted would be "tough" to meet. US military leaders have pushed back on the pace of the withdrawal, warning the Taliban could return to power or al-Qaeda could rebuild itself if a certain amount of US forces are not stationed in the Central Asian nation.

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Athletic association defies Whitmer's request for two-week pause to youth sports

High school sports in Michigan will continue despite Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's request for a two-week pause as COVID-19 cases surge in the state.

"We're going to play two days of basketball and really make no changes for the spring," Michigan High School Athletic Association Executive Director Mark Uyl told the Detroit Free Press. "We followed the orders — every order — going back to July. Whenever the orders have allowed us to play, we've played."

While all high school athletes are required to be tested for the coronavirus each week, athletes in the conference have so far shown a positivity rate of less than 3%.

Uyl also highlighted the fact that spring sports, such as track, golf, tennis, lacrosse, girls soccer, baseball, and softball, are played outside and require less physical contact than sports played in autumn.

...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, blamed youth sports for an uptick in coronavirus cases, and Director Rochelle Walensky of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said youth sports and afterschool activities should be "limited."

"We're finding out that it's the team sports where kids are getting together, obviously many without masks, that are driving it, rather than in-the-classroom spread," Fauci told Good Morning America on Tuesday. "When you go back and take a look and try and track where these clusters of cases are coming from in the school, it's just that."

Kazem Gharib Abadi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations office in Vienna, said Monday that the attack on the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant would only result in the older uranium centrifuges being replaced with newer, more advanced ones.

"Enrichment in Natanz is not stopped," Abadi wrote on Twitter. "Iran will react including by planning to implement several technical measures which the [International Atomic Energy] Agency will be informed [of] this week. Replacement process of the damaged centrifuges, including with the same machines with more capacity, has immediately begun."

On Sunday, an explosion outside the Natanz plant temporarily shut off power to the facility, which produces enriched uranium for medical and power generation purposes. Tehran has denounced the incident as "nuclear terrorism" and blamed Israel, which in response has only reaffirmed its presumed right to attack Iran as "self-defense."

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson earlier identified the damaged centrifuges as IR-1s, the oldest such devices in use in Iran. According to the JCPOA, Iran is only allowed to operate the slow IR-1s at Natanz and only above ground, where they are more vulnerable to attack. However, last month, the IAEA announced that Iran had begun using more advance IR-4 centrifuges at Natanz, which are four times more efficient than the IR-1s, and that they had been moved underground.

Natanz was previously attacked in July 2020 in an apparent sabotage incident that destroyed an above-ground centrifuge workshop.

It's unclear which type of centrifuge will replace the damage IR-1s. However, the day before the most recent attack was Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that 164 IR-6 centrifuges had been brought online at Natanz, with another 30 beginning the preparation process.

The attack has come amid negotiations in Vienna aimed at reviving the JCPOA, which the US left in 2018 amid unsubstantiated claims Iran was in violation of the deal. After the US reimposed economic sanctions on Iran and forced its allies to comply, Tehran began backing away from the terms of the deal, which imposed strict limits on its uranium production and a renunciation of the pursuit of nuclear weapons. After US President Joe Biden took office earlier this year, it was anticipated he would depart from the policy of his predecessor, former US President Donald Trump, and return to the JCPOA. However, the US has so far been hesitant to do so, insisting Iran make the first move.

Israel has also claimed Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program, but Tehran has rejected the claims, saying the Shiite-led government opposes nuclear weapons on a religious basis.

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