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Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov says the Taliban has made encouraging pledges and dismisses resistance efforts as doomed.

Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan has praised the conduct of the Taliban in the days since its takeover, saying there was no alternative to the hardline group and resistance to it would fail.

The comments on Friday by Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov reflect efforts by Russia to deepen already well-established ties with the Taliban while stopping short, for now, of recognising them as the legitimate rulers of a country Moscow tried and failed to control before the Soviet Union withdrew its last forces in 1989.

Russia wants to ensure that the instability in Afghanistan does not spill over into Central Asia, part of the former Soviet Union it regards as its own back yard, and that the region does not become a launchpad for other armed groups.

Speaking to Reuters news agency from Kabul by Zoom, Zhirnov said the security situation in the capital was much better than it was before the Taliban took control of it and spoke optimistically about the future.

"The mood in Kabul can be described as one of cautious hope," said Zhirnov.

"There was a bad regime which disappeared and people are hopeful. They say it can't be worse so it should be better. But this is another test for the Taliban to pass. After they restore order, they should start improving the socioeconomic situation," he said.

Zhirnov's comments contrast sharply with those of some Western politicians and rights activists who are deeply sceptical that the Taliban has moderated its violence towards those they see as incompatible with their nascent emirate governed by strict Islamic law.

Western politicians may be sceptical but they also had 18 months to prepare for their withdrawal knowing that the Kabul administration would fall and yet the only real chaos we see in Afghanistan is that caused by, and surrounding areas held by, the West: UK's Afghanistan evacuation plane empty amidst Kabul airport chaos, despite having '18 months to prepare'

Zhirnov said the facts on the ground had changed and the Taliban had made a set of encouraging pledges.

A list of which you can see here: Pepe Escobar: How Russia-China are stage-managing the Taliban

"We can't wave reality aside. They [the Taliban] are the de facto authorities. There is no alternative to the Taliban in Afghanistan," said Zhirnov.

The son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, one of the main leaders of Afghanistan's anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s, has pledged to hold out against the Taliban from his stronghold in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul.

Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh has also said he is in Afghanistan and the "legitimate caretaker president" after President Ashraf Ghani fled.

Ousted president Ghani did a runner with 1 helicopter and 4 cars stuffed with cash.

Zhirnov said Saleh's declaration violated the constitution and that Panjshir-based attempts to resist the Taliban were doomed.

"They have no military prospects. There are not many people there. As far as we know they have 7,000 armed people. And they already have problems with fuel. They tried to fly a helicopter but they have no petrol and no supplies," he said.

Zhirnov also questioned the idea that all of the Afghans trying to flee the country were doing so because of the Taliban.

"Many people now see this situation ... as a possible ticket to a new life [in the West] and this may not be related to the Taliban," he said of the chaotic exodus.

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UK embassy guards help diplomats board Kabul evac flight... then told they're ineligible for rescue & sent home - reports

Around 125 Afghans hired to guard the British Embassy in Kabul have been informed they will receive no protection from the UK government, the Guardian reported, noting they were rejected as they didn't work "directly" for London.

The 125 local guards, as well as around a dozen other Afghan embassy staffers, were turned away after applying for the UK's "Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy" (ARAP), designed to help Afghans resettle after working under British agencies, according to the Guardian.

© LPhot Ben Shread / UK MOD / Handout via Reuters
British citizens and dual nationals residing in Afghanistan board a military plane for evacuation from Kabul airport, Afghanistan, August 16, 2021

The guards were told that their jobs were terminated through an informal notice only - leaving them confused about their employment status immediately after helping British diplomats flee the country last Saturday. They were also reportedly asked to return company computers, radios and body armor.

"We risked our lives for them, and now we find ourselves in this bad situation - not just us, but our families are at risk," said one ex-guard who declined to be named.

"We worked in frontline positions, doing the most dangerous work to keep British officials safe."

The employees were told that they were not eligible for assistance or protection because they "were not directly employed by her majesty's government," having only worked as private contractors under GardaWorld, a Canada-based security firm.

Of around 160 foreign GardaWorld staffers that applied for help, only 21 translators were accepted for assistance and relocation. But the former guards insist that their work deserves recognition from UK authorities. Some of the rebuffed workers have written to the government to request they be added to the list, arguing that "contractors are human too."

The Western establishment will throw people and even entire countries under the bus once they're done using them. This is standard operating procedure and should perhaps be a lesson to anyone thinking of making a similar pact.

The embassy employees - including some who worked at the facility for more than a decade - initially applied for the ARAP program last month, prior to an all-out Taliban takeover of Afghanistan over the last two weeks. They now say they fear reprisals from the Islamist group as their jobs were "in the public eye," voicing skepticism in Taliban vows to give amnesty to those who worked under the Western-backed Afghan government.

"We have been doing a very dangerous job for the British embassy, and we are in a terrible condition," another former employee told the Guardian.

"We are known as British embassy staff; our lives are now at risk"

The Taliban have declared an amnesty on all workers and they have a lot to lose if they do not keep these promises, in particular with regards to the international community. But that's not to say that those guards working for foreign governments, that may have betrayed their community, won't have to fear reprisals from locals.

"No one asked whether we are safe or not. No one asked whether our lives are in danger or not," another guard said.

The president of GardaWorld's Middle East division, Oliver Westmacott, noted that formal termination letters had not been sent out yet, but added "The reality is on Saturday when the contract was demobilised, we sent people home."

"We are going to honour people's salaries, certainly up until the date that they stopped working, and we have every intention of giving people a final gratuity payment or severance."

However, Westmacott warned that his company still needed to secure agreement from the Foreign Office as to how much of the workers' salaries it would reimburse, saying "otherwise we are materially out of pocket."

The UK Foreign Office, meanwhile, told Sky News that it was "monitoring the situation with GardaWorld closely" and is "in contact with them to provide any required assistance," though did not specify any plans to actually help the former workers.

In addition to the UK's ARAP program, the government also rolled out a separate "Afghan Citizens' Resettlement Scheme" earlier this week, vowing to take in 20,000 Afghans over the next 5 years, and 5,000 by the end of 2021. Though the figure mirrors similar relocation plans unveiled by the US and Canada, the British scheme was slammed as too little, too late by critics, some noting that around 550,000 Afghans have already been displaced this year alone.

Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division has told his British colleague to stop "embarrassing" the US troops guarding the Kabul airport by venturing into the city to rescue people, at least according to one Washington columnist.

Major General Christopher Donahue has asked the commander of the 22nd Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment of the British Army to stop their operations beyond the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), because they were "embarrassing the United States military in the absence of similar US military operations," Washington Examiner columnist Tom Rogan claimed on Friday.

"I understand that the British officer firmly rejected the request," Rogan added.

Elements of the 82nd Airborne are part of the 6,000-strong US force deployed at HKIA, which also includes parts of the 10th Mountain Division and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. They were sent in to secure the airport after the surprise Taliban takeover and chaotic scenes of desperate Afghans clinging onto US troop transports last Sunday.

Only a "small number" of US troops went outside the HKIA perimeter for a "short amount of time" on Friday, in order to bring in 169 people that were unable to get in through the gates, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Friday, referring to a group President Joe Biden described at an earlier press conference as American citizens.

Around the same time Rogan posted his claim, AP had reported that several CH-47 Chinook helicopters operated by the 82nd "flew into Taliban-held Kabul" to "scoop up would-be evacuees," whom the agency described as "Afghans, mostly women and children." AP attributed this to US officials who requested anonymity.

Kirby initially said he could not confirm this. Later in the day, however, he said that the three Chinooks actually took part in the evacuation of the 169 Americans - not Afghans - stuck at a hotel about 200 meters away from the airport and unable to get in using the roads.

AP also claimed that CIA and DIA officers and special operations forces on the ground in Afghanistan were gathering US citizens and Afghans who worked for the US military at predetermined pick-up sites outside Kabul, to fly them into the airport. That claim was impossible to verify.

© USMC/Lance Cpl. Nicholas Guevara/handout
US Marines at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 20, 2021.

According to media reports, both British and French commandos have ventured into Kabul to ferry groups of their nationals from the city to the airport, while no such effort has been undertaken by the US troops.

Rogan blamed the situation on a "bureaucratic tug of war between the State Department, Pentagon, and White House," and said that relations with the British, French and other allied governments in Kabul were made worse by US failure "to communicate adequately, or in some cases, to communicate at all, on their intentions and actions." However, they all admit that only the US military could provide the airfield defense and air traffic control currently at HKIA.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley have repeatedly said the US military does not have the capability to extend the security perimeter into Kabul. Biden argued that it wasn't necessary, since the Taliban are letting Americans with the proper papers through their checkpoints anyway. However, Austin and Milley told members of Congress later in the day that some Americans were physically abused by the Taliban at a checkpoint.

We shouldn't rely on any comments from Biden : Something is wrong with the President

"I hope this isn't true," Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume tweeted in response to Rogan's claim. "One part of it is true, though. What the British are doing to get their people out certainly is making the US look bad."

Rogan gained notoriety in May 2018, when he urged Kiev to bomb the newly opened bridge connecting mainland Russia with the Crimean peninsula, describing it as an "outrageous affront to Ukraine's very credibility as a nation." He later claimed to have received support from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who promised to protect him from ending up in a Russian maximum-security prison. Klimkin said he never spoke to the man, however, and the call turned out to be the work of the notorious Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus.

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