Mohammad and his ground force commander retired US Army Captain Dennis Chamberlain say that the Taliban know his face and will kill him if they find him
An Afghan interpreter that helped rescue then-Sen. Joe Biden and two other senators from Afghanistan thirteen years ago is now pleading with the president to rescue him and his family, warning that the Taliban will likely kill him on sight.
In 2008, the man known only as Mohammed was part of a team that helped ensure Joe Biden’s safety after their Black Hawk helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing during a snowstorm.
Taliban insurgents had been spotted in the remote Afghan valley around the same time.
Thirteen years later, with Biden in the driver’s seat, Mohammed is asking the president to return the favor.
“Just give him my hello and tell him—if possible, tell him or send a message. Do not let me and my family [sic] behind.”
Mohammed was one of an unknown number of people unable to reach the Kabul International airport before the final U.S. flight took off prior to the August 31 withdrawal deadline.
“It’s very scary, mam. We are under great risk,” Mohammed said, adding that his situation is both “hard” and “horrifying.”
With reports of door-to-door executions taking place and an anti-U.S. forces sentiment running through the Taliban ranks, the Afghan interpreter has remained trapped indoors – warning that, at any moment, they could find and kill him through tracking and information-gathering.
Without the ability to travel outside and gather necessities, Mohammed fears he may die inside. His family gathered around the telephone in total darkness as he spoke.
“It’s too easy for them,” said Mohammed, referring to the Taliban.
Despite the dire circumstances, Mohammed is confident President Biden will find a way to get him out of Afghanistan.
“I trust him. He can do everything. He’s the power of the United States. He controls the power and [sic] use power right now. He can do everything for me, and, like me, other people.”
The president last month praised Gov. Gavin Newsom as “a key partner in fighting the pandemic and delivering economic relief to working families.” | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
SAN FRANCISCO — President Joe Biden will campaign for Gov. Gavin Newsom in California ahead of the Sept. 14 recall vote, Newsom said Thursday.
“I’m humbled by the fact the president will be out here soon,” Newsom told reporters during a campaign stop in San Francisco’s Chinatown district.
While the White House pledged last month to offer Newsom campaign support with expected visits by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the unraveling situation in Afghanistan upended those plans.
Harris was set to return to her Bay Area base for a campaign rally with Newsom. But the vice president canceled the appearance after a terrorist attack in Kabul killed 13 American service members.
Asked about a potential visit, the White House referred POLITICO to Biden’s previous statement expressing support for Newsom. Biden last month praised Newsom as “a key partner in fighting the pandemic and delivering economic relief to working families” and urged voters to reject the recall, but the president did not offer specific commitments.
The optics of a cross-country campaign appearance could be poor for Biden as the president continues to face heavy criticism over Afghanistan. The president’s poll numbers have plunged nationally after the Taliban seized control of the country as American troops exited.
Biden’s numbers have also fallen in California, though he still enjoys strong ratings. A Public Policy Institute of California poll released Wednesday night showed 58 percent of Californians approve of Biden, down from 70 percent in January and 66 percent in May. Still, 83 percent of Democrats back the president, and his support could help motivate the governor’s base.
Republicans jumped on Newsom’s comments Thursday.
“Dozens of California school children remain stranded in Afghanistan, abandoned by this Administration,” California Republican Party Chair Jessica Millan Patterson tweeted. “A joint campaign event to save @GavinNewsom’s job should not be @POTUS or Newsom’s priority right now.”
Time is running out for Biden to come to Newsom’s aid. Millions of Californians have already submitted mail ballots ahead of the recall election targeting Newsom.
The same PPIC poll this week suggested the race is Newsom’s to lose. California voters are answering two questions: whether to recall Newsom, and who should succeed him. If a majority of voters choose to oust Newsom, the replacement candidate with the most votes would become governor. The poll found 58 percent of voters rejecting the recall and 39 percent supporting his ouster.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki lashed into a male reporter on Thursday after he questioned how President Biden could support abortion rights despite his Catholic faith — in light of the president’s strong critique of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Texas’ controversial abortion bill.
“Following up on the Texas law, why does the president support abortion when his own Catholic faith teaches abortion is morally wrong?” asked Owen Jensen, a DC reporter for Eternal Word Television Network, known for its Catholic-focused programming.
Psaki initially responded by saying it’s the president’s belief that “it’s a woman’s right, it’s a woman’s body and it’s her choice.”
Jensen pressed further, asking, “Who does he believe then should look out for the unborn child?”
“He believes that it’s up to a woman to make those decisions. And up to a woman to make those decisions with her doctor,” Psaki said before firing back, “I know you’ve never faced those choices nor have you ever been pregnant but for women out there who have faced those choices this is an incredibly difficult thing. The president believes that right should be respected.”
Jen Psaki lashed into a male reporter after he questioned how Biden could support abortion rights despite his Catholic faith.REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The law, which is now the strictest in the country since Row v. Wade, has been heavily critized for its ban of abortions at six weeks and its allowing of private citizens to bring legal action against anyone who assisted in terminating the pregnancy, including those who drive a woman to the abortion appointment.
Citizens who win such lawsuits may be entitled to at least $10,000.
The only exception granted under the law is for a “serious medical emergency” in which the doctor must prove the woman could die or face serious bodily impairment if the abortion isn’t carried out.
The Supreme Court decided to uphold Texas’ controversial abortion bill. Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Biden slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday, calling it an “unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional rights under Roe v. Wade.”
“By allowing a law to go into effect that empowers private citizens in Texas to sue health care providers, family members supporting a woman exercising her right to choose after six weeks, or even a friend who drives her to a hospital or clinic, it unleashes unconstitutional chaos and empowers self-anointed enforcers to have devastating impacts,” he said in a statement.
“Rather than use its supreme authority to ensure justice could be fairly sought, the highest Court of our land will allow millions of women in Texas in need of critical reproductive care to suffer while courts sift through procedural complexities.”
In response to the ruling, the president has directed the Gender Policy Council and the Office of the White House Counsel to start on a “whole-of-government” response to see what steps the Federal government can take to protect the abortion rights of women in Texas.
Abortion rights supporters gather to protest Texas SB 8 in front of Edinburg City Hall on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021, in Edinburg, Texas.Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP
In light of his strong statement earlier in the day, Psaki was pushed during the briefing on the president’s plan of action when it comes to the future of the Supreme Court. In April, Biden signed an executive order creating a commission to examine the highest court, looking at several questions including term limits and expansion.
As the commission’s findings are due in October, questions have been raised on what actions Biden plans to take towards the court.
Psaki left the options open, saying the president is “waiting for the conclusion of this report, looks forward to reviewing it and seeing where [the commission come’s] out.”
“I can’t predict for you, I don’t know where he’s going to land,” she added. “I’m going to leave the space for the president to determine that.”
Companies behind the U.S.’s largest dating apps are reacting to Texas’s restrictive abortion law that was allowed to go into effect this week by the Supreme Court.
Bumble, based in Austin, said it was creating a relief fund supporting people seeking abortions in the state.
“Bumble is women-founded and women-led, and from day one we’ve stood up for the most vulnerable. We’ll keep fighting against regressive laws like #SB8,” the company said in a tweet, referring to the legislation signed in May by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. The law bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a time period before many women have even discovered they’re pregnant.
A Bumble spokesperson declined to comment.
Match Group CEO Shar Dubey also announced in a memo to employees that she would personally create a fund to support Texas-based workers and dependents who needed to seek care outside of the state, a company spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.
Match, based in Dallas, owns a bevy of dating companies, including its namesake app Match along with Hinge, Tinder and OKCupid.
“As I have said before, the company generally does not take political stands unless it is relevant to our business. But in this instance, I personally, as a woman in Texas, could not keep silent,” Dubey said in the memo.
“Surely everyone should see the danger of this highly punitive and unfair law that doesn’t even make an exception for victims of rape or incest. I would hate for our state to take this big step back in women’s rights,” she added.
Roadways turned into rivers. Downed trees and power lines blocked roads and damaged houses. And at least two tornados touched down in New Jersey, with one ripping through a southern Jersey town, destroying at least 20 houses.
In one of the fiercest storms to hit New Jersey in recent years, Tropical Storm Ida delivered a knockout punch, wreaking havoc across the state as it took lives, flooded downtowns and caused untold millions of dollars in damage.
As of 2:30 p.m. Thursday, at least 10 people in New Jersey died from the storm, including four who died in an apartment complex in Elizabeth.
Ida left few areas in New Jersey unscathed, with the destruction spanning the state from Passaic County in the north to Gloucester County down south. While the storm had been predicted to have a massive impact — Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency in all of New Jersey’s 21 counties — the destruction, at first look Thursday morning, was far greater than many had feared.
“There is a lot of hurt in New Jersey,” Murphy said Thursday morning as he pledged to use all resources available to help residents deal with the widespread damage. “We’re pulling all the levers. It’s going to be a long road,” he said as he implored people to stay off the roads.
Ida’s confirmed death toll as of early afternoon Thursday surpassed the state’s losses from both Hurricane Floyd and Irene, and the numbers may still rise as rescue and recovery crews continue their searches.
In 2011, nine people in New Jersey died from Hurricane Irene, most from drowning in the raging flood waters while trapped inside their cars. Six people drowned in New Jersey during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, including two deaths each in Somerset and Bergen counties and one each in Passaic and Salem counties. At least 40 people from New Jersey died during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
The worst flooding from Ida may be yet to come. As of midday Thursday, some rivers had not yet reached their peak flood stage.
The Passaic River in Pine Brook and Little Falls, the Raritan River in Bound Brook and the Assunpink Creek in Trenton are forecast by the National Weather Service to keep rising until 6 p.m. Friday. The Delaware River at Easton/Phillipsburg is forecast to crest around 6 p.m. on Thursday, the weather service said.
The storm also upended transportation across the state, temporarily shutting down Newark International Airport Wednesday night, with nearly 400 flights canceled. Flooding closed part of one terminal and some roads remain closed. Teterboro Airport was also shut down with flooding. NJ Transit rail service is still suspended, except for the Atlantic City Rail Line, while buses are running with localized delays as they encounter roads closed by flooding and downed trees.
More than 60,000 people remained without power as of midday Thursday. For PSE&G customers, Essex County had the most outages with more than 14,000. JCP&L’s outages included more than 8,000 in Morris, nearly 8,000 in Hunterdon and more than 7,500 in Sussex counties.
Because the waters of the Raritan River spilled across Route 18 in New Brunswick and were still rising Thursday, Rutgers’ postponed its football season opener against Temple until Saturday.
Route 18 in New Brunswick at Rutgers University was under water on Thursday, September 2, 2021 after Tropical Storm Ida caused river waters to rise. (Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
As of noon Thursday, authorities confirmed at least 10 deaths from the storm.
In Elizabeth, four residents of the Oakwood Plaza Apartments complex on Irvington Avenue died during the storm, and rescue personnel are trying to determine if there may be more casualties. The dead include a married couple in their 70s, their 38-year-old son and a 33-year-old female neighbor but their names have not been released, authorities said.
On Thursday morning, police were calling every listed resident and going door-to-door to apartments to check on other residents, city spokeswoman Kelly Martins said.
“Our police and fire are going door-to-door to pretty much do a wellness check at this point and see if there are unfortunately anymore,” said Martins.
Some 600 Elizabeth residents are homeless because of the storm, officials said.
Authorities said two men were swept into the pipe, which travels under Stelton Road from South Plainfield to Piscataway, on Wednesday night, but only one of the men was rescued.
Then on Thursday, police said, they discovered the body of Dhanush Reddy, 31, of Edison, in a wooded area in Piscataway.
Near midnight on Wednesday, Union Township Police received a call that a citizen had discovered a male body floating in the 5 Points area. The man, who was identified only as an 83-year-old resident, was found on Chestnut Street near Overlook Hospital. Authorities said they believe the man drowned after his car got stuck and he walked out into 3 to 4 feet of water.
Two people were found dead in submerged vehicles in Hillsborough Township, The deaths took place between late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning after their vehicles became disabled in rising flood waters, police said. Charyl Talke, 61, of Belle Mead, was discovered on Route 206 near the Montgomery border, police said. Daphne Francisca Lopez Del Bono, 30, of Ringoes, was found at Amwell Road near North Willow. The deaths are not considered suspicious but are under investigation, authorities said in a statement.
In Milford, Hunterdon County, a driver was found dead in a pickup truck in a creek off Carpenter Street, Mayor Henri Schepens said. The driver’s name has not yet been released and New Jersey State Police are investigating the death.
“We don’t know where the vehicle came from,” Schepens said. “It could have gone through many bridges. It went for quite the distance. The whole roof was smashed in. Water is amazingly powerful.”
In Passaic, a 70-year-old man drowned in a car fully submerged in rising flood waters in Passaic on Wednesday night, Passaic mayor Hector Lora said. The man’s 66-year-old wife and 25-year-old son were rescued by firefighters, but two others may have been swept away by flooding, Lora said. The 70-year-old man’s name has not been released.
Lora said others at least two others are feared dead, swept away by the Passaic River, and divers would continue searching.
“This is just yet another reminder, these come more frequently,” said Murphy, noting that climate change exposes New Jersey in part because of its dense population. “We have got to update our playbook. We’ve got to turn it up, but in the meantime we’re going to be there for folks as they pick up the pieces and recover.”
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NJ Advance Media reporters Rodrigo Torrejon, Steven Rodas, Rob Jennings, Larry Higgs, Noah Cohen and Joe Atmonavage contributed to this report.
Firefighters put out hot spots on Wednesday near South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
Jae C. Hong/AP
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Jae C. Hong/AP
Firefighters put out hot spots on Wednesday near South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
Jae C. Hong/AP
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — With winds finally turning in their favor, firefighters are throwing all their resources into boxing a California blaze that was scant miles from Lake Tahoe and neighboring Nevada.
Three days of fiercely gusting winds had driven the Caldor Fire east through the rugged Sierra Nevada, forcing tens of thousands of people from the region of forests, mountain hamlets, resorts and alpine lakes.
The winds were expected to calm heading into the weekend, although the humidity remained low and the eastern side of the vast wildfire was still burning trees and running through explosively dry grasslands into rugged areas hard for firefighters to reach, authorities said.
The blaze was also throwing sparks that caught trees and created spot fires up to a mile ahead of the main wall of flames.
“We’re battling what we can battle and waiting for those winds to subside,” said Stephen Vollmer, a fire behavior analyst for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Even so, the forecast made fire officials cautiously optimistic.
A satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows an overview of smoke coming from the Caldor Fire on Tuesday near South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
The change could allow fire crews to get into densely forested areas to begin clearing toppled trees and branches that had blocked routes to remote communities, thus making it safer for evacuees to return, Vollmer said.
Fire crews from around the country were being thrown into the fight against the fire, which was just 23% contained after destroying at least 700 homes and other buildings since breaking out Aug. 14.
Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent, destructive and unpredictable, scientists say.
The Caldor Fire threatened at least 33,000 more homes and structures. On Wednesday, firefighters were ferried by boat to protect cabins at Echo Lake, a few miles south of Tahoe.
Heavenly Mountain Resort, Tahoe’s largest ski area, was being used as a staging area by firefighters. The resort also brought out its big guns — snow-making devices that were being used to hose down buildings.
One spur of the fire was roughly 3 miles (5 kilometers) south of the recently evacuated city of South Lake Tahoe, moving northeast toward the California-Nevada state line, authorities said.
Crews worked to keep flames away from urban communities, where houses are close together and shopping centers, hotels and other structures would provide even more fuel.
Thick smoke has enveloped the city of South Lake Tahoe, which is all but deserted at a time when it would normally be swarming with tourists.
After casinos and stores closed on the Nevada side on Wednesday morning, evacuation holdouts lacking cars lined up outside the Montbleu resort and casino in Stateline, awaiting a bus to Reno.
Kevin O’Connell, a disabled plumber from South Lake Tahoe, planned on staying and riding out the evacuation order. But he went to the 7-11 down the street in Stateline and saw even stores there had closed.
“I called 911 and told them I need to get out of here — I have no food, no cigarettes and I’m disabled. And within a couple hours, the police came and picked me up in my apartment and brought me here,” he said, wearing ski goggles to protect his eyes from the blowing ash.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden issued a federal emergency declaration and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local resources for firefighting efforts and relief for residents in four counties affected by the fire.
More than 15,000 firefighters, with help from out-of-state crews, were battling dozens of California blazes, including another monstrous blaze in the same area.
Maj. Gen. David Baldwin, adjutant general of California, said the state has also deployed more than 1,000 National Guard soldiers, airmen and sailors and 10 other states have sent around 1,250 additional Guard members. Many of those are providing air support, including 23 aircraft, some equipped with water buckets, others with systems that can drop fire retardant.
About 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of the Lake Tahoe-area blaze, the Dixie Fire is the second-largest wildfire in state history at about 1,320 square miles (3,415 square kilometers). The weeks-old fire prompted new evacuation orders and warnings this week and was just over 50% contained.
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which saw scenes of desperation and violence inside and outside of Kabul’s airport, has coincided with a drop in President Biden’s approval rating. Biden has fiercely defended the evacuation.
Taylor Crul/U.S. Air Force via Getty Images
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Taylor Crul/U.S. Air Force via Getty Images
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which saw scenes of desperation and violence inside and outside of Kabul’s airport, has coincided with a drop in President Biden’s approval rating. Biden has fiercely defended the evacuation.
Taylor Crul/U.S. Air Force via Getty Images
Amid the chaos of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden’s approval rating slid to just 43% in the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
That is down 6 percentage points from a survey conducted in July and is the lowest mark for Biden in the poll since taking office. The decline is principally due to independents — just 36% of them approve of the job he’s doing, a 10-point drop.
That a majority of independents now disapprove of his performance is bad news for Biden and Democrats. They’re a key swing group, one Biden won in 2020 but who now think he’s off track.
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Biden hopes his decision on the withdrawal looks better as time goes by, but for now, he has taken a political hit.
It took seven months, but this is now a polarizing presidency
Republicans have struggled to drum up the kind of animus toward Biden as they did for, say, Hillary Clinton. But now, seven months into his presidency, they seem to have found what to grind their teeth about, from cultural and economic issues to Afghanistan.
A whopping 41% of U.S. adults, including 82% of Republicans, now strongly disapprove of the job Biden is doing. That is similar to the unprecedented enmity shown toward President Donald Trump.
Afghanistan is seen as a failure all around, but refugees are welcome at this point
On Afghanistan, 61% disapprove of Biden’s handling of the withdrawal, including 71% of independents. A majority also disapproves of Biden’s handling of foreign policy in general.
Still, an overwhelming 71% think the war in Afghanistan was a failure, and while they disapprove of how Biden handled the exit, they’re split on what they think should have been done — 38% think the U.S. should have withdrawn but left some troops, 37% think it should have pulled out completely, and just 10% said no troops should be withdrawn.
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Only 29% of respondents think the U.S. has a duty to continue its involvement in the beleaguered nation; 61% think it needs to be up to Afghans to determine their future without U.S. involvement.
But they do seem to feel the U.S. has a duty to Afghan refugees and visa holders. Nearly three-quarters — 73% — say they support allowing refugees to come to the United States.
While that support seems to be broad, it has become a flashpoint and split Republicans; some are fighting for Afghans to be resettled while others, like Trump, are using nativist rhetoric in calling to keep them out of the country.
The survey reflects that as well — 49% of Republicans approve of refugees coming to the U.S., while 44% do not.
The U.S. has a long history of not being very welcoming to refugees. Gallup found:
In 2015, 60% were against accepting Syrian refugees.
In 1979, just a third were supportive of bringing in Vietnamese refugees after the war there.
In 1946, after World War II, just 16% supported accepting European refugees, including Jews — after the Holocaust.
The blame game
As for which president they blame for that failure, that mostly splits along partisan lines. Overall, the most — 36% — goes to former Republican President George W. Bush, who sent troops to Afghanistan in the first place. The Taliban were largely run out of power, but al-Qaida leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden remained on the lam.
Democrats pointed to Bush and Trump, who negotiated the exit deal with the Taliban without the then-Afghan government at the table.
Republicans mostly blamed Biden and former President Barack Obama. Obama escalated involvement in Afghanistan after he felt Bush ignored it for the wrong war — in Iraq. Obama announced bin Laden had been killed in 2011, drew down U.S. troops significantly and vowed to withdraw all from Afghanistan, but never entirely did so.
Domestic terrorism is seen as the bigger threat
With the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks coming up this month, a plurality — 44% — thinks the country is less safe than it was before the attacks, while 30% say it’s safer and a quarter say about the same.
Politics is at play in this question as well, however. Two-thirds of Republicans said the U.S. is less safe.
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Overall, more believe domestic terrorism — 49% — is a greater threat than international terrorism — 41%.
Almost 7 in 10 Republicans said it was international terrorism, though, that was the bigger threat, while 7 in 10 Democrats said it was domestic terrorism.
Still, the overall number is a big shift from 2002 after 9/11 when by a 56%-to-30% margin in a CBS News poll, people said the opposite.
The survey of 1,241 adults was conducted Aug. 26 through Tuesday, via landline and mobile telephones. Survey questions were available in English and Spanish. The margin of error of the full sample was 3.8 percentage points. The margins of error for the subsets of Democrats, Republicans and independents were all larger.
In media news today, Chris Hayes downplays Biden’s phone call with ex-Afghanistan president Ghani, ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather gets crushed for tweet comparing pro-lifers to the Taliban, and an MSNBC analyst likens the Texas abortion law to slavery
An old tweet from White House press secretary Jen Psaki is coming back to haunt her amid reports of the controversial July phone call between President Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as the administration pursued the military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
According to a transcript of the July 23 presidential call reviewed by Reuters, Biden didn’t anticipate the Taliban’s rapid advance across Afghanistan, which ended when its fighters stormed Kabul on Aug. 15 and Ghani fled the presidential palace. Instead, Biden focused much of the 14-minute call on the Afghan government’s “perception” problem, Reuters reported.
“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said. “And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
That exchange has fueled accusations that Biden misled the nation about Afghanistan’s stability in order to follow through with the military withdrawal despite the underlining threat from the Taliban.
However, a 2019 tweet from the then-CNN contributor called for transparency in the early weeks of then-President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal that ultimately resulted in his impeachment. It chiefly involved a phone call Trump had with counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy about investigating Biden and his son Hunter.
“It is not just the call transcript. The whistleblower complaint would likely have more details. We need both. And not just the call,” Psaki wrote at the time.
Some critics appeared to hail Psaki’s call for transparency while others called out her apparent double standard.
“100% Agree,” Spectator contributor Stephen Miller reacted, adding “Will be weird if journos decide to just ignore this one.”
“But now you refuse to answer questions on Biden’s call with Ghani? What happened to the promise that this administration will be about ‘truth and transparency?’” political strategist VF Castro told Psaki.
Psaki did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
At the White House press briefing on Wednesday, Psaki dodged questions about Biden’s phone call with Ghani.
“Well, I’m not going to get into private, diplomatic conversations or leaked transcripts of phone calls,” Psaki said. “But what I can reiterate for you is that we have stated many times that no one anticipated … that the Taliban would be able to take over the country as quickly as they did or that the Afghan National Security Forces would fold as quickly as they did.”
“So even the content of the reporting is consistent with what we’ve said many times publicly,” she continued. “I’ll also note something the president said in his press conference around the same time of this reported phone call: The Afghan government and leadership has to come together. They clearly have the capacity to sustain the government in place. The question is, will they generate the kind of cohesion to do it.”
For the U.S. military pilots and aircrew about to make their final takeoffs out of Afghanistan, the sky was lit up with fireworks and sporadic gunfire and the airfield littered with battered shells of airplanes and destroyed equipment. Stray dogs raced around the tarmac. And Taliban fighters, visible in the darkness through the green-tinged view of night vision goggles, walked the airfield waving an eerie goodbye.
Lined up on the runway at the Kabul airport Monday night were the five last C-17s to leave the country after a chaotic and deadly airlift evacuation that marked the end of America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war. In the final hours, there were no more rocket defense systems to protect them on the runway, and no one in the airport control center to direct them out.
“It just looked apocalyptic,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Braden Coleman, who was in charge of monitoring the outside of his aircraft for artillery fire and other threats. “It looked like one of those zombie movies where all the airplanes had been destroyed, their doors were open, the wheels were broken. There was a plane that was burned all the way. You could see the cockpit was there, and the whole rest of the plane looked like the skeleton of a fish.”
Stress of final preparations, concerns for safety
In interviews Wednesday with The Associated Press, members of the Air Force’s 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron who flew out on the last military flights detailed their final fraught hours in what has been a dark, emotional and divisive U.S. exit from a war that now leaves the country in the hands of the same Taliban enemy it once ousted from power.
“It was just definitely very tense, and we were definitely all on edge watching everything going on to make sure that we were ready,” said Air Force Capt. Kirby Wedan, pilot of MOOSE81, who led the final formation of five aircraft out.
Adding to the stress, she said, was that their planes were parked in an area of the airport that had been attacked and breached in the past. At one point during the night, a group of civilians got onto the airfield and tried to get to the aircraft, but they were stopped by Army troops securing the plane, said Wedan, who is the squadron’s mission planning cell chief.
Right behind her C-17 was MOOSE92, where Coleman, the director of operations for the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, was going through his own checklists for takeoff. When he was told to taxi up a bit farther, he stepped out of the plane to help direct the crew where to go.
“I had my NVG’s on, my night vision goggles, and I had a Raven behind me following me out, making sure that I was, you know, safe,” said Coleman, referring to a member of the specially trained security forces who protect Air Force aircraft. “It was a bit tense, I’m not going to lie. But I guess you don’t really think of it at the time. You just … do what you’re trained to do.”
For more than three hours, they methodically went through about 300 items on their checklists, packing up the last four Little Bird helicopters, and ensuring they had all their troops and equipment.
‘Flush the force’
From Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, commander of Air Mobility Command, watched on video screens as the aircraft lined up for takeoff. One screen showed a scroll of the mIRC chat stream — the online message application that the military uses to communicate. And she could hear the orders from Lt. Col. Alex Pelbath, a pilot who was serving as the mission commander for the final departure.
One by one, each C-17 was told to “clamshell” — or close up the ramp. Then Pelbath’s final order: “Flush the force.” With that, Wedan began to move her C-17 down the runway.
“It was definitely different. I’ve never been on an airfield where I didn’t really have permission to take off,” said Wedan, noting the absence of air traffic control in the tower.
As they lifted off in rapid succession, cheers broke out from the troops on board — most of them special operations forces and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division.
“It was a visible relief,” said Wedan. “You could tell that they had been working really hard. Many of them hadn’t showered in a couple of weeks. They were all incredibly tired. … You could tell that they were just relieved to be out of there and that their mission was accomplished.”
As the last C-17 cleared Kabul airspace, Pelbath’s delivered a welcome message: “MAF Safe” — shorthand for saying that the Mobility Air Forces were out of harm’s way.
Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, had been the last soldier to walk up the ramp on the final C-17 to depart. He had been in charge of security for the evacuation mission. Soon after the aircraft were in the air, he sent his own message: “Job well done. Proud of you all.”
Crammed onto the floor of the aircraft, exhausted troops found places to sleep. “Everyone was kind of sitting on top of each other — whatever we could do to have them get them on the aircraft and get them out,” said Wedan.
Within 30 minutes, she said, most on her plane were asleep. Coleman agreed.
“I walked downstairs, and they warned me not to go to the bathroom because there were too many people in front of the lav door,” said Coleman. “There was one guy who had a box of water bottles that he was using for a pillow. I don’t know how that could have been comfortable. But, hey, he was fast asleep.”
Their flight to Kuwait was about four hours long. Coleman said his plane was lucky enough to have extra toilets. Wedan’s had just one — but her crew passed out candy.
“They’re tired and they’re resting now. But I think, for two and a half weeks, you really saw why it was that a lot of us joined,” said Coleman, who enlisted in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks that triggered the U.S. invasion into Afghanistan. “To see everybody step up to make this happen in the amount of time that it took to happen, to move 124,000 people out in less than three weeks. I mean, I couldn’t be prouder to be a C-17 pilot today.”
On Thursday a US supreme court voted 5-4 to allow a Texas law banning most abortions to remain in force. The law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks and before most women know they’re pregnant.
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The Caldor Fire isn’t the only thing running wild through California.
Video from an evacuated Lake Tahoe tourist city showed dumpster-diving bears and other wild critters making the most of deserted streets — as the wildfire raged just miles away.
The town would usually be full of summer visitors.RMG News
The animals were filmed Tuesday as they casually meandered through the mostly empty South Lake Tahoe, a resort city that would usually be bustling with summer tourists.
The bears nonchalantly rummaged through dumpsters, scattering food around them, and calmly crossed empty streets, with coyotes also seen strolling about.
A coyote roams free in Lake Tahoe.RMG News
That afternoon, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Henry Herrera had told KGO-TV that the Caldor Fire was just 3 miles outside of South Lake Tahoe, which had been evacuated Monday, at least of its human occupants.
Roughly 22,000 residents had jammed the city’s main artery for hours after they were ordered to leave, with officials saying only a handful of residents defied the evacuation order.
Two firefighters create a fuel break as the Caldor Fire burns near homes in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.AP
By Wednesday, thick smoke had enveloped the city as firefighters scrambled to keep the wildfire at bay amid low humidity, dry fuel and gusts up to 30 mph.
With Post wires
The bears nonchalantly rummaged through dumpsters, scattering food around them, and calmly crossed empty streets.RMG News
‘Fox News Primetime’ host says the president ‘remains delusional’ after a series of ‘egregious’ decisions
Tammy Bruce slammed Biden for a “crisis in confidence” Wednesday on “Fox News Primetime,” saying his agenda was defined by “deadly incompetence.”
TAMMY BRUCE: Well, like a badly written movie. Instead, there is now a crisis in confidence in American leadership here and abroad because the Biden agenda is now defined by deadly incompetence, delusional decision-making and downright destructive dereliction. Just today, Joe Biden met with the president of Ukraine, whom the New York Times describes as “unnerved by America’s abrupt and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan” and that “he is expected to raise questions about U.S. security commitments.” The paper of record for the left also says “it comes in the wake of an event that has caused numerous American allies to question the firmness of Washington’s support.” You could also say they’re concerned about the firmness of Biden’s grip in general. More on this later. The message being sent all over the world after the president’s reckless Afghan exit is that the terrorists are emboldened and that America’s adversaries are energized. For example, Biden yesterday had the audacity to claim the Afghan strategy was an extraordinary success even as U.S. Troops are dead, Americans are still stranded and the Taliban is in control and ask yourself: if it was such a success, then why is Biden at the same time contradicting himself and blaming everyone? If it all went so well, then why would there be anyone to blame?—Because, really, deep down, everyone knows, including the president’s fiercest defenders, that the surrender to the Taliban has consequences far beyond Afghanistan. As a new piece in the economist notes, “through will power, patience and cunning, a low budget band of holy warriors has vanquished America and taken charge of a medium-sized country. To Muslims who yearn to expel infidels and overthrow secular states, it was evidence that God approves. The ripple effects could be felt far and wide.”—and those ripple effects will be felt far beyond Afghanistan and far beyond the region itself.
A banner in the Panjshir Valley portrays of Ahmad Massoud and his father with a slogan “You dream of a free country, free thanks to your army, Ahmad is by your side, may God protect you.”
Reza/Getty Images
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Reza/Getty Images
A banner in the Panjshir Valley portrays of Ahmad Massoud and his father with a slogan “You dream of a free country, free thanks to your army, Ahmad is by your side, may God protect you.”
Reza/Getty Images
In Afghanistan, history has a way of repeating itself: Today, much like when the Taliban last seized power in 1996, the rugged Panjshir province is the final redoubt standing in the way of their complete domination of the country — and once again, the name of the leader opposing them is Massoud.
“I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban,” Ahmad Massoud wrote in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post shortly after the Taliban seized Kabul. “We have stores of ammunition and arms that we have patiently collected since my father’s time, because we knew this day might come.”
Massoud’s father was a legend known as the ‘Lion of Panjshir’
His father, Ahmad Shah Massoud, was a larger-than-life figure — seen by many as a military genius and master of guerrilla warfare who helped fight the Soviet Union to a standstill in the 1980s and eventually mounted a successful defense against repeated efforts by the Taliban to win control of the valley.
Afghan guerrilla leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud (center) is surrounded by rebel commanders at a meeting in the Panjshir Valley in northeast Afghanistan, in 1984.
Jean-Luc Bremont/AP
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Jean-Luc Bremont/AP
Afghan guerrilla leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud (center) is surrounded by rebel commanders at a meeting in the Panjshir Valley in northeast Afghanistan, in 1984.
Jean-Luc Bremont/AP
Such was his prowess as a rebel commander that Massoud was known by his supporters and enemies alike as the “Lion of Panjshir.”
But two days before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Massoud — who had escaped many close calls on the battlefield — was assassinated by al-Qaida suicide bombers posing as television journalists. His death reverberated worldwide.
The next generation of resistance has coalesced
Fast-forward to 2021: Massoud’s 32-year-old son is picking up from where his legendary father left off. But unlike the Lion of Panjshir, the younger Massoud has no combat experience. He was educated in the United Kingdom — having trained as a foreign cadet at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, studied at King’s College and later received a master’s degree in international politics from London’s City University, according to The Spectator. His undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations were on the Taliban.
As the Taliban gained strength in the years before their final assault last month on Kabul, the Afghan capital, Massoud began organizing opposition against a possible return of the hard-line Islamist militia. In the spring, Massoud made the rounds and met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris — where his father, who studied at a French lycée in Afghanistan, remains a revered figure.
The U.K.-educated Ahmad Massoud (shown here in 2019) is the son of legendary commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and, like his father, is amassing resistance forces in Panjshir province.
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Reza/Getty Images
The U.K.-educated Ahmad Massoud (shown here in 2019) is the son of legendary commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and, like his father, is amassing resistance forces in Panjshir province.
Reza/Getty Images
Massoud recently has been joined in the Panjshir Valley by Amrullah Saleh, a former Afghan vice president who declared himself the country’s rightful president after Ashraf Ghani fled as the Taliban took over Kabul. Saleh has called on his supporters to rally to Panjshir to continue the fight against the Taliban.
It’s difficult to gauge the strength of the self-styled National Resistance Forces led by Massoud. The group is reportedly a coalition of militias and remnants of the Afghan army.
The ethnically mixed Panjshir is vulnerable
Panjshir province — located about 80 miles northeast of Kabul, past the former U.S.-run Bagram Airfield and across the rugged Hindu Kush mountains — is a natural fortress against invaders. Panjshir’s residents include a mix of ethnic Tajiks — like Massoud himself — along with Hazaras, a Shia Muslim minority, and others.
That diversity stands in contrast with the Taliban, who are dominated by Afghanistan’s majority Pashtuns. It is not “a monolithically Pashtun force,” writes Anatol Lieven, a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, noting that the militants have “gathered a good deal of support among other ethnicities by appealing to religious conservatism.” But, he writes, the Taliban “leadership is still overwhelmingly Pashtun, and seen as such by most of the other peoples.”
Afghanistan’s Hazaras, in particular, have reason to be fearful of the Taliban and a strong incentive to resist. During the Taliban’s previous years in power, they targeted Hazaras in a campaign of repression and persecution, including mass killings. There’s no indication they’ve moderated since: A recent Amnesty International report outlines recent Taliban atrocities against the minority group.
“These targeted killings are proof that ethnic and religious minorities remain at particular risk under Taliban rule in Afghanistan,” Agnès Callamard, the group’s secretary general, said.
It may be too late for a negotiated settlement
Despite Massoud’s bellicose-sounding Washington Post op-ed, he has suggested Panjshir might talk its way out of Taliban control. Last week, delegations from the Taliban and the Panjshir resistance reportedly met in the northern Parwan province, but the three-hour meeting seems to have yielded little more than an agreement to keep talking.
“We want to make the Taliban realize that the only way forward is through negotiation,” Massoud told Reuters recently. “We do not want a war to break out.”
In an interview by email with Foreign Policy magazine, Massoud elaborated: “If the Taliban are willing to reach a power-sharing deal where power is equally distributed and is decentralized, then we can move toward a settlement that is acceptable to everyone,” he wrote. “Anything less than this will be unacceptable to us, and we will continue our struggle and resistance until we achieve justice, equality, and freedom.”
For the Taliban’s part, one of its senior leaders, Amir Khan Motaqi, called on the Panjshir resistance to lay down its weapons and negotiate peace. “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is home for all Afghans,” he said in a speech.
But it may already be too late. With Kabul secure and the Americans finally gone, the Taliban have turned their military attention to the rogue province.
The Taliban say “hundreds” of their fighters are heading toward the Panjshir “after local … officials refused to hand it over,” according to the group’s Arabic Twitter account, Al-Jazeera reports.
And first blood has already been drawn, seemingly dimming the chances for a negotiated settlement. As the last U.S. flights were leaving Kabul on Monday night, at least seven of Taliban soldiers were killed in clashes in Panjshir, Massoud’s resistance group said, according to The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, the Taliban are in a position to surround Massoud’s resistance fighters and cut off their access to supplies. It’s not clear how long they can hold out.
Massoud is reaching out for help from a war-weary Washington, as well as the U.K. and France.
“[We] need more weapons, more ammunition and more supplies,” he wrote.
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A road in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, crumbled, leaving a “surreal scene,” amid heavy rain dumped over New England early Thursday morning as the remnants of Hurricane Ida battered the region.
Videos shared on social media by WPRI’s Johnny Villella shows Fairview Lane caved in. Running water was visible under the sections of asphalt that fell apart.
“The road has collapsed. We have a car hanging over the edge here,” a man, presumably Villella, says off-camera in one of the videos, as he pans to a sedan straddling a fault-line in the pavement. “Just an unbelievable scene here.”
(CNN)At least eight people were killed due to flooding as the Northeast was slammed by torrential rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, officials said Thursday.
CNN’s Shimone Prokupecz, Michael Guy, Mark Morales, Keith Allen, Rob Frehse, Dave Alsup, Mirna Alsharif, Alta Spells, Kiely Westhoff, Paul Murphy and Colin McCullough contributed to this report.
The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday night refused to block a Texas law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The vote was 5-to-4, with three Trump-appointed justices joining two other conservative justices. Dissenting were conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, and the court’s three liberal justices.
The decision left open the option for abortion providers to challenge the Texas law in other ways in the future, leaving open the possibility–even likelihood– that the case will return to the Supreme Court, though not for months or longer.
The opinion was unsigned. It said the abortion providers didn’t properly address “complex and novel antecedent procedural questions” in their case.
“In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants’ lawsuit,” the decision said. “In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.”
The ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy is well before most women even know they are pregnant and is at odds with the Supreme Court’s precedents, which prohibit states from banning abortions prior to fetal viability — usually between 22 and 24 weeks. The Texas bill, however, was structured to insulate the law from being tested quickly in court.
Because the established procedure for challenging a state law is to sue officials charged with enforcement, the Texas state legislature wrote the law instead to put citizens in charge of enforcement. Specifically, the law allows anyone, without establishing any vested personal interest, to sue clinics and individuals alike for “aiding and abetting” abortions performed after six weeks.
That potentially puts in the crosshairs of liability not just clinics, but individuals who staff the clinics, who drive patients to clinics or help finance abortions.
The court’s action came just before midnight on Wednesday, nearly a day after the law went into effect. Reproductive rights advocates late last week filed an emergency appeal with the court after a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals cancelled a hearing that had been scheduled by a federal trial judge on whether to block the law.
Chief Justice Roberts, in dissent, said he would have temporarily blocked the law from going into effect in order to give the lower courts adequate time to hear and decide “whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws” by “essentially delegat[ing] enforcement to…the populace at large.”
The case, he acknowledged, does present difficult and novel questions, but none of those questions had been thoroughly considered yet by the lower courts. Nor, Roberts said, had the cases been fully briefed or considered by lower court judges.
Joining Roberts’ opinion were liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. Each also wrote separately, as did Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Breyer, citing the famous 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison, said that normally where a legal right is invaded, the law itself “provides a legal remedy by suit,” and this law, he suggested, does the opposite.
Justice Kagan, in her written dissent, said “Texas’s law delegates to private individuals the power to prevent a woman from obtaining an abortion during the first stage of pregnancy. But a woman has a federal constitutional right to obtain an abortion during that first stage,” a right that the Supreme Court has endorsed repeatedly over nearly a half century.
Justice Sotomayor used bolder language than the three other dissenters.
“The court’s order is stunning, ” she wrote. “Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand….Because the court’s failure to act rewards tactics designed to avoid judicial review and inflicts significant harm on the applicants and on women seeking abortions in Texas, I dissent.”
Following Hurricane Ida, Louisianans got to work assessing storm damage and helping their neighbors, be they human or bovine.
Tuesday evening, St. Bernard Parish shared a video of classic Louisiana neighborly care: Road Yard Chief of Operations Louis Pomes and parish government employees Tyler Acosta, David Palmer and Roy Ragan Sr. saved a cow that was stuck in a tree.
The rescue workers found the cow stuck in Florissant, Louisiana, located east of New Orleans.
The video quickly went viral, garnering tens of thousands of views and likes on social media. It has received over 75,000 views on Facebook.
Reporters and other social media users shared their disbelief at the situation that was strange for humans and animals alike.
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