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RAF prepared to attack Afghanistan despite western withdrawal, officer says

Sam Hancock
Independent
Wed, 01 Sep 2021 10:37 UTC
Afghanistan RAF
© MoD/Reuters
The RAF is prepared to launch air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan - if the situation presents itself, according to a senior officer.

It comes after the terror network's Afghan offshoot, Isis-K, claimed responsibility for the attack on Kabul airport, which was carried out on Thursday and killed two Britons, the child of a British national, as well as 13 US service personnel and hundreds of Afghan civilians.


Comment: Except it seems that not only did the Pentagon know about the upcoming attack, a significant number of those who died did so as a result of gunfire coming from the US side: Who profits from the Kabul suicide bombing?


While the international community appears to have accepted the reality of Taliban rule, the UK and US remain willing to take on Islamic State, also known as Daesh.

Comment: Similar comments were made by the UK's defence minister back in April, that it 'reserved the right to attack the ungoverned spaces', so clearly they had this option in mind even before the shameful events of the withdrawal.

It's unlikely that the West is going to leave Afghanistan alone anytime soon - it's a critical node in China's Belt & Road Initiative after all - but it has sufficient nefarious resources at its disposal that it doesn't necessarily need to wage an open war: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Kabul Airport Atrocity - What Actually Happened?



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Info

Biden Administration launches civil-rights probes against five states over mask-mandate bans

Caroline Downey
National Review
Mon, 30 Aug 2021 13:41 UTC
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona
© Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona addresses the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., August 5, 2021.
After President Biden gave the cue to Education Secretary Cardona, the Department of Education has launched civil-rights probes against five Republican-led states that banned mask mandates in public institutions.

"The Department has heard from parents from across the country - particularly parents of students with disabilities and with underlying medical conditions - about how state bans on universal indoor masking are putting their children at risk and preventing them from accessing in-person learning equally," Cardona said in a press release.

OCR will investigate whether the states in question have violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which deal with discrimination.

Comment: See also:

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MIB

'I was recruited by UK intelligence to spy on ISIS and got thrown under the bus' - claims ex-militant awaiting trial in Dagestan


RT
Mon, 30 Aug 2021 07:49 UTC
Azamat Ayvazov
© RT
Azamat Ayvazov claims he was recruited by the UK special services to spy on ISIS militants in Syria but was then abandoned there.
A former ISIS militant, awaiting trial in Russia, claims he had been recruited by UK agents to spy on the terrorist group. The man told RT he ended up fighting in the terrorists' ranks, allegedly, after being abandoned in Syria.

Azamat Ayvazov, 33, who is in a pre-trial facility in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan, gave an exclusive interview to RT's Ilya Petrenko, who became interested in the unusually talkative ex-militant's side of the story.

The man claims that ending up in the ranks of the notorious terrorist group was never his intention, and instead holds himself to be a victim of "geopolitical games."

Ayvazov left Russia some 10 years ago, gaining refugee status in the UK. Following the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack, he ended up on the radar of the British secret services, as they allegedly screened "Muslim-looking" individuals.

Comment: Terroristic organizations like ISIS/ISIL, Al-Qaeda, and many others are created, financed and commanded by the PTB through the Intelligence agencies. They need them, so they can cause terror and fear among the population.

They represent the secret unofficial army and they are using it to strip the basic human rights of the targeted population, to invade and destroy countries that oppose them, and to globally install totalitarian police state.

But don't worry. They are doing it for our own good.

See also:

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Bomb

Pentagon knew about Kabul suicide bombing 'hours in advance,' report claims, but troops on the ground say they weren't protected


RT
Mon, 30 Aug 2021 15:48 UTC
kabul bombing casualties troops coffins
© AP Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta
A Marine Corps team handles the remains of US troops killed in a suicide attack near Kabul airport at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, August 29, 2021.
US military leaders knew in advance that a "mass casualty event" was planned at Kabul airport, a Politico report reveals. However, accounts from the troops in harm's way suggest that nothing was done.

A suicide bombing outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul last Thursday killed more than 150 people, including 13 American troops. The bombing provoked the US into launching two drone strikes, one targeting an alleged "planner" and "facilitator" with the group responsible, and another supposedly wiping out "multiple" would-be suicide bombers but reportedly annihilating a family and children alongside them.

The initial bombing didn't take US officials by surprise. The US embassy in Kabul had warned Americans to stay away from the airport due to "security threats" and, in the hours before the suicide attack, Pentagon leaders held a conference call to prepare for an imminent "mass casualty event," according to a Politico report on Monday.

Comment: See also:

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Broom

'War is over - Taliban won': Final US flight leaves Kabul airport, ending Afghanistan airlift


RT
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 20:11 UTC
Airport Kabul
© U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Isaiah Campbell
Evacuees wait to board a US Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 23.
The last three US military transport planes have departed the Hamid Karzai Airport just ahead of the August 31 deadline, officially ending the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) has confirmed.

The last C-17 Globemaster transport lifted off from Kabul at 3:29pm East Coast time, General Kenneth McKenzie, head of the CENTCOM officially announced on Monday, calling it "the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan."

With the last US military flight departed, McKenzie said every single US service member had now left Afghanistan. However, he acknowledged that the US did not manage to evacuate everyone it wanted to.

Comment: Foreign troops may be out of the country, but we can be sure that the war on Afghanistan is not over: Pepe Escobar: Blowback: The Taliban target US intel's shadow army

Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Kabul Airport Atrocity - What Actually Happened?



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Syringe

Israeli cabinet bars unvaccinated and untested teachers, doctors from workplaces


Times Of Israel
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 18:39 UTC
COVID-19 vaccine - Israel
© AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov
Ministers of the high-level coronavirus cabinet voted Monday to expand the so-called Green Pass entry limitations to education, health, and social welfare institutions, a government statement said.

Applying the system to schools, hospitals and welfare facilities means employees — including teachers, doctors, nurses and caregivers — will only be granted entry to their workplaces if they have documentation showing they are vaccinated against COVID-19, have recovered from the virus, or have tested negative for the virus within the past 72 hours.

The expanded rules, approved by a select panel of ministers tasked with forming virus policy, will also apply to workers in all places where customers are required to abide by the Green Pass system and expands on existing restrictions.

Ahead of the school year that starts Wednesday, the cabinet also voted to accept a recommendation to ease restrictions in the so-called "Red Cities," where infection rates are high.
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Bad Guys

Enduring Terror Forever: From al-Qaeda to ISIS-K

Pepe Escobar
The Saker
Mon, 30 Aug 2021 18:10 UTC
Taliban members
© AFP / Haroon Sabawoon / Anadolu Agency
Taliban members stand guard on Saturday at a checkpoint near Hamid Karzai International Airport, the center of evacuation efforts from Afghanistan since the Taliban took over, after Friday's suicide bombing attack.
It was 20 years ago today. Asia Times published Get Osama! Now! Or Else...The rest is history.

Retrospectively, this sounds like news from another galaxy. Before Planet 9/11. Before GWOT (Global War on Terror). Before the Forever Wars. Before the social network era. Before the Russia-China strategic partnership. Before the Dronification of State Violence. Before techno-feudalism.

Allow me to get a little personal. I was back in Peshawar - the Islamic Rome, capital of the tribal areas - 20 years ago after a dizzying loop around Pakistan, tribal territory, a botched smuggling op to Kunar, biding time in Tajikistan, arriving by Soviet helicopter in the Panjshir valley, a harrowing road trip to Faizabad, and a UN flight that took ages to arrive.

In the Panjshir, I had finally met "the Lion", commander Masoud, then plotting a counter-offensive against the Taliban. He told me he was fighting a triad: the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Pakistani ISI. Less than three weeks later he was assassinated - by two al-Qaeda ops disguised as a camera crew, two days before 9/11.

No one, 20 years ago, could possibly imagine the subsequent slings and arrows of outrageous - terror - fortune. Two decades, $2.3 trillion and at least 240,000 Afghan deaths later, the Taliban are back where they were: ruling Afghanistan. Masoud Jr in theory leads a "resistance" in the Panjshir - actually a CIA ops channeled through CIA asset Amrullah Saleh, former Afghan Vice-President.

Al-Qaeda is a harmless skeleton, even rehabilitated in Syria as "moderate rebels"; the new bogeyman in town is ISIS-K, a spin-off of the Islamic State in "Syraq".

After negotiating a stunning package deal with the Taliban, the Empire of Chaos is concluding a humiliating evacuation from the land it bombed into democracy and submitted for two decades. Once again the US was de facto expelled by a peasant guerrilla army, this time mostly consisting of Pashtuns, descendants of the White Huns - a nomad confederation - as well as the Sakas, nomadic Iranic peoples of the Eurasian steppes.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

'Americans opened fire fearing next explosion': Witnesses of chaotic Kabul suicide bombing aftermath speak to RT


RT
Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
kabul shooting
© RT
In the pandemonium that followed the suicide bombing at Kabul Airport, witnesses told RT's Murad Gazdiev they ran for their lives as the shooting started. One injured woman described US troops opening fire as civilians fled.

Editor's note: The previous version of this story included quotes based on an incorrect live translation of the people RT interviewed, stating that the witnesses saw American troops "indiscriminately" shooting civilians. We have removed those quotes and added the correct translation of the accounts.

The bomb blast ripped through a crowd of people outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, killing more than 150 people, including 13 American troops. In the chaos that followed the explosion, early reports from the ground suggested that American forces opened fire - and that some of the rounds struck the panicked crowd of Afghans at the airport gate.

Comment: See RT's follow-up article on the Pentagon having 'foreknowledge' of the attack here. See below for the summary:
US military leaders knew in advance that a "mass casualty event" was planned at Kabul airport, a Politico report reveals. However, accounts from the troops in harm's way suggest that nothing was done.

The initial bombing didn't take US officials by surprise. The US embassy in Kabul had warned Americans to stay away from the airport due to "security threats" and, in the hours before the suicide attack, Pentagon leaders held a conference call to prepare for an imminent "mass casualty event," according to a Politico report on Monday.

The report says Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke on Wednesday with senior Pentagon leaders - including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Peter Vasely, commander of American forces in Afghanistan, and Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division at Kabul Airport.

Milley warned of "significant" intelligence indicating that ISIS-K, a regional offshoot of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terror group was plotting a "complex attack," and the brass in Afghanistan stated that the attack would likely take place at the airport's Abbey Gate, where droves of Afghans had gathered in the hopes of a spot on an evacuation flight.

The attack was due to take place within the following 24-48 hours, according to notes from the conference call detail.

[...]

While the Politico article details a frantic yet failed attempt to prevent a massacre, accounts from US troops on the ground in Kabul tell a story of negligence.

Multiple troops stationed at the airport messaged a veteran-run Instagram business page, claiming that they had received word of an incoming suicide bomber, but were instructed by superiors to continue "police calling" (picking up trash) regardless.

Another said that their commanders had precise information about what the suicide bomber looked like, and what time they would strike, down to the hour. "All day on the radio it was a countdown," the service member posted.
See also:



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Colosseum

Lavrov: Despite US humiliation in Afghanistan, Russia not gloating over chaos & only 'worried about region,'


RT
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 18:20 UTC
Kabul Afghanistan
© Getty Images / MARCUS YAM
Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 23, 2021
While the fall of Kabul to the Taliban as American troops beat a hasty retreat may have tarnished Washington's reputation and slashed its ambitions, Russia isn't rejoicing over the events, the country's foreign minister has said.

Speaking as part of a campaign event ahead of next month's parliamentary elections, Sergey Lavrov warned that regional instability is far from a cause for celebration. "People have written that we are gloating over events in Afghanistan," the top diplomat said. "But there has been no such feeling."

"We are very worried about some of our closest allies and neighbors, which border both Afghanistan and the Russian Federation and have visa-free travel agreements." According to him, Russia is also concerned about the humanitarian situation in the Central Asian nation, given the history between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.

Comment: If the US withdraw from Afghanistan actually wasn't just a 'botched operation', here we might have some insight on why things went down the way they did. The US may have 'sacrificed' it's hold over Afghanistan in order to release a new wave of chaos in the Middle East and beyond.

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Pirates

Did the US support the growth of ISIS-K?

Alex Rubinstein
realalexrubi.substack.com
Sat, 28 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
ISIS-K
© Unknown
ISIS-K
The list of governments, former government officials, and organizations in the region that have accused the US of supporting ISIS-K is expansive and includes the Russian government, the Iranian government, Syrian government media, Hezbollah, an Iraqi state-sponsored military outfit and even former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who called the group a "tool" of the United States as journalist Ben Norton recently noted, characterizing Karzai as "a former US puppet who later turned against the US, and knows many of its secrets."

So what exactly is ISIS-K and what is it's history? After ISIS's Afghanistan variant became a household name overnight following a suicide bombing at Kabul's airport that killed more than 170 people and wounded more than 200, the group's history demands renewed scrutiny.

Back in May, I tweeted that "I must not be the only one expecting a so-called 'rise of ISIS' in Afghanistan in the near future..."

I wrote this because mass-casualty terrorist attacks are repeatedly used as justification by the United States for continuing its occupations of foreign countries: the "counterterrorism mission," or the "terrorist threat." And it has been a long time since the Taliban has taken credit for any such acts.

In fact, all the way back in August 2016 — a little over five years ago — Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Iranian media that "In cooperation with the nation, [the Taliban] has prevented the terrorist group from gaining a foothold in Afghanistan."
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