Tag Archives: Afghanistan

EU says Taliban must respect rights, guarantee security as conditions for help

By Sabine Siebold

BRDO, Slovenia (Reuters) -The European Union is ready to engage with the new Taliban government in Kabul but the Islamist group must respect human rights, including those of women, and not let Afghanistan become a base for terrorism, the EU foreign policy chief said on Friday.

“In order to support the Afghan population, we will have to engage with the new government in Afghanistan,” Josep Borrell said during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Slovenia.

He described an “operational engagement,” which would not by itself constitute the formal recognition of the Taliban government, and would “increase depending on the behavior of this government”.

Borrell said the new government must prevent the country from again becoming a breeding ground for militants as it was during the Taliban’s previous time in power. It must respect human rights, the rule of law and freedom of the media, and should negotiate with other political forces on a transitional government.

The Taliban have yet to name a government more than two weeks since they swept back into power. Their 1996-2001 rule was marked by violent punishments and a ban on schooling or work for women and girls, and many Afghans and foreign governments fear a return to such practices. The militants say they have changed but have yet to spell out the rules they will enforce.

Borrell said the new government in Kabul must also grant free access to humanitarian aid, respecting EU procedures and conditions for delivery.

“We will increase humanitarian aid, but we will judge them according to the access they provide,” Borrell said.

Aid agencies have said Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian catastrophe amid an economic crisis brought on by the conflict, a drought and the COVID-19 pandemic. About 18 million Afghans – roughly half the population – are already in need of humanitarian help, according to EU experts.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said it depended on the Taliban how swiftly frozen development aid – which is different from the unconditional humanitarian aid – can flow again.

“We have heard many moderate remarks in the past days, but we will measure the Taliban by their actions, not by their words,” Maas told reporters in Slovenia.

“We want to help avert a looming humanitarian crisis in the coming winter, which is why we have to act fast.”

According to Borrell, the EU aims to coordinate its contacts with the Taliban through a joint EU presence in Kabul, should security conditions make it safe to do so.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Peter Graff)

Biden to visit Louisiana to see Hurricane Ida damage, New Jersey death toll rises

By Steve Holland and Devika Krishna Kumar

WASHINGTON/NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden travels to Louisiana on Friday to get a first-hand look at the destruction wrought by Hurricane Ida, the monster storm that devastated the southern portion of the state and left 1 million people without power.

Biden is to meet Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards and local officials about the hurricane, which is providing the president with a tough test just after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Hurricane Ida struck the Gulf coast last weekend and carved a northern path through the eastern United States, culminating in torrential rains and widespread flooding in New York, New Jersey and surrounding areas on Wednesday.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Friday said the state had confirmed an additional two deaths overnight, bringing its total to 25. He said at least six people were still missing, meaning the death toll would likely climb higher.

“We’re still not out of the woods,” he told NBC News’ “Today” program, adding that his biggest concern following the wreckage was grappling with remaining high waters and damage. “We’re going to clean up … but it may be a long road.”

The fifth most powerful hurricane to strike the United States came ashore in southern Louisiana on Sunday, knocking out power for more than a million customers and water for another 600,000 people, creating miserable conditions for the afflicted, who were also enduring suffocating heat and humidity.

At least nine deaths were reported in Louisiana, with at least another 46 killed in the Northeast.

“My message to everyone affected is: ‘We’re all in this together. The nation is here to help,'” Biden said on Thursday.

Biden will tour a neighborhood in LaPlace, a small community about 35 miles west of New Orleans that was devastated by flooding, downed trees and other storm damage, and deliver remarks about his administration’s response.

He will take an aerial tour of hard hit communities, including Laffite, Grand Isle, Port Fourchon and Lafourche Parish, before meeting with local leaders in Galliano, Louisiana, the White House said.

Officials who have flown over the storm damage reported astounding scenes of small towns turned into piles of matchsticks and massive vessels hurled about by the wind.

Edwards said he would present Biden with a long list of needs including fuel shipments as most of the area’s refining capacity was knocked offline and mile-long lines have formed at gas stations and emergency supply distribution centers.

At Biden’s direction, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Thursday authorized an exchange of 1.5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to Exxon Mobil to relieve fuel disruptions in the wake of the hurricane.

Several refineries remained cut off from crude and products supplies from the south via ship and barge after portions of the Mississippi River were closed by several sunken vessels.

“This is the first such exchange from the SPR in four years and demonstrates that the president will use every authority available to him to support effective response and recovery activities in the region,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said late on Thursday.

Biden has also urged private insurance companies to pay homeowners who left in advance of the storm but not necessarily under a mandatory evacuation order.

“Don’t hide behind the fine print and technicality. Do your job. Keep your commitments to your communities that you insure. Do the right thing and pay your policy holders what you owe them to cover the cost of temporary housing in the midst of a natural disaster. Help those in need,” he said.

While Louisiana tried to recover from the storm, the New York area was still dealing with crippling floods from Ida.

People across large swaths of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut spent Thursday coping with water-logged basements, power outages, damaged roofs and calls for help from friends and relatives stranded by flooding.

At least 16 have died in the state of New York, officials said, including 13 in New York City where deaths of people trapped in flooded basements highlighted the risk of increasingly extreme weather events.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told MSNBC on Friday that there would be a need to implement travel bans and evacuations more frequently ahead of storms. He said he was putting together a new task force to tackle the issue.

“We’ve got to change the whole way of thinking” in how to prepare for storms, de Blasio said. “We’re going to need them to do things differently.”

Biden approved an emergency declaration in New Jersey and New York and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts, the White House said late on Thursday.

(Reporting By Steve Holland and Devika Krishna Kumar; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Kanishka Singh and Susan Heavey, editing by Ross Colvin, Michael Perry and Steve Orlofsky)

Western Union resuming services to Afghanistan – senior exec

By Tom Arnold

LONDON (Reuters) – Western Union Co is resuming money-transfer services to Afghanistan, a senior executive told Reuters on Thursday, a decision he said was in line with a U.S. push to allow humanitarian activity to continue after the Taliban’s takeover.

The world’s largest money-transfer firm and MoneyGram International Inc, another global remittance provider, suspended services in Afghanistan two weeks ago after the Islamist militia captured Kabul at lightning speed.

But an easing of security concerns following the completion of the Taliban’s conquest of the country opened the way for the reopening this week of banks, which the money-transfer firms rely on to dispense and collect funds.

Jean Claude Farah, Western Union’s president in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said the reopening of banks, plus a push by the United States to facilitate humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, had given the American company confidence to resume services on Thursday.

“Much of our business involving Afghanistan is low-value family and support remittances that support basic needs of the people there, so that’s the grounding that we have and why we want to reopen our business,” Farah told Reuters.

“We’ve engaged with the U.S. government, which has conveyed that allowing humanitarian activities, including remittances, to continue are consistent with U.S. policy.”

The flow of funds from migrant workers overseas is a key lifeline for many Afghans and has helped the economy of one of the world’s poorest nations weather years of violence and instability. The United Nations says about half of the population requires aid amid the second drought in four years.

SANCTIONS ON TALIBAN

One complication is that there are a broad range of sanctions on financing to the Taliban, while the Haqqani network, which has links to the Taliban, is classed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Britain.

Yet U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has said it is committed to allowing humanitarian work to continue in Afghanistan.

“We are continuing to engage with the U.S. government and others to understand their policies and what type of longer term regulatory framework will be put in place as it relates to the Taliban,” Farah said.

Remittances to Afghanistan reached $789 million in 2020, around 4% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the World Bank estimated, down from $829 million in 2019.

MoneyGram didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on its plans in Afghanistan.

DO BANKS HAVE THE CASH?

In recent days, Afghanistan’s central bank has provided funds of hundreds of thousands of dollars to each bank that requested liquidity, a senior banker told Reuters. But the financial system and economy could be in peril unless the Taliban can access the central bank’s roughly $10 billion in assets, which are mostly outside of the country.

Farah said that Western Union had been assured by the banks it partners with in Afghanistan that they had sufficient cash to pay receivers of remittances.

“Some of them have indicated at some locations that they have good liquidity in afghani and at least some liquidity in U.S. dollars as well, we allow payouts in both, to resume remittances,” he added.

Before it shut down services on Aug. 16, around 45% of each transaction sent via Western Union to Afghanistan was $200 or less, he said.

(Reporting by Tom Arnold; Editing by Pravin Char)

New era for Afghanistan starts with long queues, rising prices

By James Mackenzie

(Reuters) – As Kabul began a new era of Taliban rule, long queues outside banks and soaring prices in the bazaars underlined the everyday worries now facing its population after the spectacular seizure of the city two weeks ago.

For the Taliban, growing economic hardship is emerging as their biggest challenge, with a sinking currency and rising inflation adding misery to a country where more than a third of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

Even for the relatively well-off, with many offices and shops still shut and salaries unpaid for weeks the daily struggle to put food on the table has become an overwhelming preoccupation.

“Everything is expensive now, prices are going up every day,” said Kabul resident Zelgai, who said tomatoes which cost 50 afghani the day before were now selling for 80.

In an effort to get the economy moving again, banks which closed as soon as the Taliban took Kabul have been ordered to re-open. But strict weekly limits on cash withdrawals have been imposed and many people still faced hours of queuing to get at their cash.

Outside the city, humanitarian organizations have warned of impending catastrophe as severe drought has hit farmers and forced thousands of rural poor to seek shelter in the cities.

People huddling in tent shelters by roadsides and in parks are a common sight, residents said.

In a cash-based economy heavily dependent on imports for food and basic necessities and now deprived of billions of dollars in foreign aid, pressure on the currency has been relentless.

The afghani was recently valued at around 93-95 to the dollar in both Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, compared with around 80 just before the fall of the city. But the rate is only an indicator, because normal money trading has dried up.

In the Pakistani city of Peshawar, close to the border, many money traders are refusing to handle the Afghan currency, which has become too volatile to value properly.

Only the sheer scarcity of cash has kept it from falling further, with international shipments of afghanis and dollars yet to resume.

“In the bazaar you can exchange for a bit over 90 but it goes up and down because it’s not official,” said one trader. “If they open the exchanges again it will go up over 100, I’m sure of it.”

STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS

The fall in the exchange rate has seen prices for many basic foodstuffs ratchet up daily, squeezing people who have seen their salaries disappear and their savings put out of reach by the closure of banks.

Kabul market traders said a 50 kg bag of flour was selling for 2,200 afghanis, around 30% above its price before the fall of the city, with similar rises for other essentials like cooking oil or rice. Prices for vegetables were up to 50% higher, while petrol prices were up by 75%.

Remittances from abroad have also been cut off by the closure of money transfer operators like Western Union, and increasing numbers of people have been trying to sell jewelry or household goods, even if they have to accept a fraction of their value.

“Two weeks ago, people were buying but the situation now is not good and no one is buying,” said one vendor. “People’s money is stuck in the banks and no one has money to buy anything.”

Taliban officials have said the problems will ease once a new government is in place to restore order to the market and have appealed to other countries to maintain economic relations. But the structural problems run deep.

Even when its economy was floating on a tide of foreign money, growth was not keeping pace with the rise in Afghanistan’s population.

Apart from illegal narcotics, the country has no significant exports to generate revenue, and aid, which accounted for more than 40% of economic output, has abruptly disappeared.

A new central bank chief has been appointed but bankers outside Afghanistan said it would be difficult to get the financial system running again without the specialists who joined the exodus out of Kabul.

“I don’t know how they will manage it because all the technical staff, including senior management, has left the country,” one banker said.

In a sign of the pressure on Afghanistan’s currency reserves, the Taliban have announced a ban on taking dollars and valuable artefacts out of the country and said anyone intercepted would have their goods confiscated.

Some $9 billion in foreign reserves is held outside the country and out of reach of the Taliban’s embryonic government, which has still not been officially appointed, let alone recognized internationally.

To add to the problems, a recent suicide attack by an Afghan offshoot of Islamic State on crowds waiting to get a place on evacuation flights brought a chilling reminder that the bombings that were a regular feature of life in the past may not be over.

“The market situation had slightly improved in the last few days,” said one vendor at a Kabul street market where people sell household goods to raise cash. “But it completely collapsed after the suicide attack near the airport.”

(James Mackenzie reported from Milan; Additional reporting by Islamabad bureau and Tom Arnold in London; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Taliban hail victory with gunfire after last U.S. troops leave Afghanistan

(Reuters) – Celebratory gunfire resounded across the Afghan capital on Tuesday as the Taliban took control of the airport following the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops, marking the end of a 20-year war that left the Islamist group stronger than it was in 2001.

Shaky video footage distributed by the Taliban showed fighters entering the airport after the last U.S. troops flew out on a C-17 aircraft a minute before midnight, ending a hasty and humiliating exit for Washington and its NATO allies.

“It is a historical day and a historical moment,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference at the airport after the departure. “We are proud of these moments, that we liberated our country from a great power.”

An image from the Pentagon taken with night-vision optics showed the last U.S. soldier to step aboard the final evacuation flight out of Kabul – Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.

America’s longest war took the lives of nearly 2,500 U.S. troops and an estimated 240,000 Afghans, and cost some $2 trillion.

Although it succeeded in driving the Taliban from power and stopped Afghanistan being used by al Qaeda as a base to attack the United States, it ended with the hardline militants controlling more territory than when they last ruled.

The Taliban brutally enforced their strict interpretation of Islamic law from 1996 to 2001, not least by oppressing women, and the world is watching now to see if the movement will form a more moderate and inclusive government in the months ahead.

Long lines formed in Kabul on Tuesday outside banks shuttered since the fall of the capital as people tried to get money to pay for increasingly expensive food.

There was a mixture of triumph and elation on the one side as the Taliban celebrated their victory, and fear on the other.

“I had to go to the bank with my mother but when I went, the Taliban (were) beating women with sticks,” said a 22-year-old woman who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.

She said the attack occurred among a crowd outside a branch of the Azizi Bank next to the Kabul Star Hotel in the center of the capital.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen something like that and it really frightened me.”

Thousands of Afghans have already fled the country, fearing Taliban reprisals.

More than 123,000 people were evacuated from Kabul in a massive but chaotic airlift by the United States and its allies over the past two weeks, but many of those who helped Western nations during the war were left behind.

A contingent of Americans, estimated by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at fewer than 200, and possibly closer to 100, wanted to leave but were unable to get on the last flights.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab put the number of UK nationals in Afghanistan in the low hundreds, following the evacuation of some 5,000.

‘LOT OF HEARTBREAK’

General Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told a Pentagon briefing that the chief U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, was on the last C-17 flight out.

“There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure,” McKenzie told reporters. “We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. But I think if we’d stayed another 10 days, we wouldn’t have gotten everybody out.”

The departing U.S. troops destroyed more than 70 aircraft and dozens of armored vehicles. They also disabled air defenses that had thwarted an attempted Islamic State rocket attack on the eve of their departure.

As the Taliban watched U.S. troops leave Kabul on Monday night, at least seven of their fighters were killed in clashes in the Panjshir valley north of the capital, two members of the main anti-Taliban opposition group said.

Several thousand anti-Taliban fighters, from local militias as well as remnants of army and special forces units, have gathered in the valley under the command of regional leader Ahmad Massoud.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. military was not concerned with images of Taliban members walking through Kabul airport holding weapons and sizing up U.S. helicopters.

“They can inspect all they want,” he told CNN. “They can look at them. They can walk around. They can’t fly. They can’t operate them…”

But he said that “the threat environment” remains high.

“We’re obviously concerned about the potential for Taliban retribution going forward and we certainly, we saw it ourselves, are mindful of the threat that ISIS-K continues to pose inside Afghanistan.”

ISIS-K is the Islamic State affiliate that claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside Kabul airport on Thursday that killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghan civilians.

U.S. President Joe Biden defended his decision to stick to Tuesday’s withdrawal deadline. He said the world would hold the Taliban to their commitment to allow safe passage for those wanting to leave Afghanistan.

Biden has said the United States long ago achieved the objectives it set in 2001, when it ousted the Taliban for harboring al Qaeda militants who masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks.

But he has drawn heavy criticism from Republicans and some fellow Democrats for his actions since the Taliban took over Kabul this month after a lightning advance and the collapse of the U.S.-backed government.

Blinken said the United States was prepared to work with the new Taliban government if it did not carry out reprisals against opponents.

Taliban spokesman Mujahid said the group wanted to establish diplomatic relations with the United States, despite the two decades of hostility. “The Islamic Emirate wants to have good diplomatic relations with the whole world,” he said.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Steven Coates, Simon Cameron-Moore and Nick Macfie; Editing by Kevin Liffey/Mark Heinrich)

U.S. completes withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan

(Reuters) -The United States completed the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Monday, after a chaotic evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghan allies to close out U.S. involvement there after 20 years of conflict.

The operation came to an end before the Tuesday deadline set by President Joe Biden, who has drawn heavy criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for his handling of Afghanistan since the Taliban made rapid advances and took over Kabul earlier this month.

The withdrawal was announced by General Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, who said the final flights did not include some of the dozens of Americans who remained behind.

More than 122,000 people have been airlifted out of Kabul since Aug. 14, the day before the Taliban regained control of the country two decades after being removed from power by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

The United States and its Western allies scrambled to save citizens of their own countries as well as translators, local embassy staff, civil rights activists, journalists and other Afghans vulnerable to reprisals.

The evacuations became even more perilous when a suicide bomb attack claimed by Islamic State – enemy of both the West and the Taliban – killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghans waiting by the airport gates on Thursday.

Biden promised after the bloody Kabul airport attack to hunt down the people responsible.

The departure took place after U.S. anti-missile defenses intercepted rockets fired at Kabul’s airport.

Two U.S. officials said “core” diplomatic staff were among 6,000 Americans to have left. They did not say whether that included top envoy Ross Wilson, expected to be among the last civilians to depart.

A U.S. official said initial reports did not indicate any U.S. casualties from as many as five missiles fired on the airport. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.

In recent days, Washington has warned of more attacks, while carrying out two air strikes. It said both hit Islamic State targets, one thwarting an attempted suicide bombing in Kabul on Sunday by destroying a car packed with explosives, but which Afghans said had struck civilians.

Tuesday’s deadline for troops to leave was set by Biden, fulfilling an agreement reached with the Taliban by his predecessor, Donald Trump to end the United States’ longest war.

But having failed to anticipate that the Taliban would so quickly conquer the country, Washington and its NATO allies were forced into a hasty exit. They leave behind thousands of Afghans who helped Western countries and might have qualified for evacuation.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus and Idrees Ali and Rupam Jain; Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Writing by Clarence Fernandez, Peter Graff, William Maclean and Steve Holland; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Catherine Evans and Peter Cooney)

Rockets target US troops as core diplomats fly out of Kabul

(Reuters) -U.S. anti-missile defenses intercepted rockets fired at Kabul’s airport on Monday as the United States flew its core diplomats out of Afghanistan in the final hours of its chaotic withdrawal.

The last U.S. troops are due to pull out of Kabul by Tuesday, after they and their allies mounted the biggest air evacuation in history, which brought out 114,000 of their own citizens and Afghans who helped them over 20 years of war.

Two U.S. officials said the “core” diplomatic staff had withdrawn by Monday morning. They did not say whether this included top envoy Ross Wilson, expected to be among the last to leave before the final troops themselves.

A U.S. official said initial reports did not indicate any U.S. casualties from as many as five missiles fired on the airport. Islamic State – enemies of both the West and the Taliban – claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.

The rockets followed a massive Islamic State suicide bombing outside the teeming airport gates on Thursday, which killed scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. troops.

In recent days Washington has warned of more attacks, while carrying out two air strikes. It said both hit Islamic State targets, including one on Sunday it said thwarted an attempted suicide bombing by blowing up a car packed with explosives in Kabul, but which Afghans said had struck civilians.

Tuesday’s deadline for troops to leave was set by President Joe Biden, fulfilling an agreement reached with the Taliban by his predecessor Donald Trump to end Washington’s longest war.

But having failed to anticipate that the Taliban would so quickly conquer the country, Washington and its NATO allies were forced into a hasty evacuation. They will leave behind thousands of Afghans who helped Western countries and might have qualified for evacuation but did not make it out in time.

The Taliban, who carried out public executions and banned girls and women from school or work when last in power 20 years ago, have said they will safeguard rights and not pursue vendettas. They say once the Americans leave, the country will at last be at peace for the first time in more than 40 years.

But countless Afghans, especially in the cities, fear for their futures. And the United Nations said the entire country now faces a dire humanitarian crisis, cut off from foreign aid amid a drought, mass displacement and COVID-19.

“The evacuation effort has undoubtedly saved tens of thousands of lives, and these efforts are praiseworthy,” said UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi.

“But when the airlift and the media frenzy are over, the overwhelming majority of Afghans, some 39 million, will remain inside Afghanistan. They need us – governments, humanitarians, ordinary citizens – to stay with them and stay the course.”

A Pakistani plane flew 12.5 tonnes of World Health Organization medical emergency and trauma kits on Monday to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the WHO’s first supplies to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.

Afghanistan’s healthcare system is at risk of collapse, two aid agencies told Reuters, after foreign donors including the World Bank and European Union stopped providing aid following the Taliban’s victory.

Outside the airport in Kabul, people described themselves as forsaken by the departing foreign troops.

“We are in danger,” said one woman. “They must show us a way to be saved. We must leave Afghanistan or they must provide a safe place for us.”

TERRIFIED

Afghan media said Monday’s rocket attack was launched from the back of a vehicle. The Pajhwok news agency said several rockets struck different parts of the Afghan capital.

“People are terrified and worried about the future, worried that the rocket launching might continue,” said Farogh Danish, a Kabul resident near the wreckage of the car from which the rockets were launched.

On Sunday, Pentagon officials said a U.S. drone strike killed an Islamic State suicide car bomber preparing to attack the airport. The Taliban condemned the strike and said seven people died. The New York Times quoted family members as saying it killed 10 people, including seven children, an aid worker for an American charity and a contractor with the U.S. military.

U.S. Central Command said it was investigating reports that civilians were killed.

“We know there were substantial and powerful subsequent explosions resulting from the destruction of the vehicle, indicating a large amount of explosive material inside that may have caused additional casualties,” it said.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters evacuations would continue on Monday, prioritizing people deemed at extreme risk. Other countries have also put in last-minute requests to bring out people in that category, the officials said.

Britain urged other countries to work together to provide safe passage out for eligible Afghans still in the country.

The Taliban will take full control of Kabul airport after the U.S. withdrawal on Tuesday, Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network cited an unidentified Taliban source as saying.

PRESIDENT MOURNS U.S. DEAD

Biden attended a ceremony on Sunday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to honor members of the U.S. military killed in Thursday’s suicide bombing, the deadliest incident for U.S. troops in Afghanistan in more than a decade.

As the flag-draped transfer caskets carrying the remains emerged from a military plane, the president, who has vowed to avenge the Islamic State attack, shut his eyes and tilted his head back.

Five of the fallen service members were just 20, as old as the war itself.

The departure of the last troops will end the U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan that began in late 2001, after the al Qaeda Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

U.S.-backed forces ousted a Taliban government that had provided safe haven for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and have engaged in a counter-insurgency war against the Islamist militants for the past two decades.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus and Idrees Ali and Rupam Jain; Writing by Clarence Fernandez and Peter Graff; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Angus MacSwan)

Afghanistan’s healthcare system near collapse, aid agencies warn

By Alasdair Pal and Libby Hogan

(Reuters) – Afghanistan’s healthcare system is at risk of collapse, two major aid agencies told Reuters, after foreign donors stopped providing aid following the Taliban takeover.

After the United States withdrew the bulk of its remaining troops last month, the Taliban accelerated its military campaign, taking control of the capital Kabul on Aug. 15.

International donors including the World Bank and European Union froze funding to Afghanistan shortly afterwards.

“One of the great risks for the health system here is basically to collapse because of lack of support,” said Filipe Ribeiro, Afghanistan representative for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), one of the largest medical aid agencies in the country.

“The overall health system in Afghanistan is understaffed, under-equipped and underfunded, for years. And the great risk is that this underfunding will continue over time.”

Necephor Mghendi, Afghanistan head of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), said the healthcare system, which was already fragile and heavily reliant on foreign aid, had been left under additional strain.

“The humanitarian needs on the ground are massive,” he said.

INCREASED DEMAND

Both aid agencies said that while their ground operations were broadly unaffected, they had seen a significant increase in demand as other facilities are unable to fully function.

Mghendi said closures of Afghan banks had meant almost all humanitarian agencies have been unable to access funds, leaving vendors and staff unpaid.

Compounding the issue, medical supplies will now need to be restocked earlier than expected.

“Supplies that were supposed to last for three months will not be able to last three months. We may need to replenish much earlier than that,” Mghendi said.

Ribeiro said MSF had stockpiled medical supplies before the takeover but that with flights disrupted and land borders in disarray, it was unclear when more might reach the country.

During its period in power from 1996-2001, the Islamist militant Taliban had an uneasy relationship with foreign aid agencies, eventually expelling many, including MSF, in 1998.

This time, the group has said it welcomes foreign donors, and will protect the rights of foreign and local staff – a commitment that has so far been upheld, Ribeiro said.

“They actually ask us to stay, and they asked us to keep running our operations the way we were running them before,” he said. “The relations are, so far, pretty reassuring.”

(Reporting by Alasdair Pal in New Delhi and Libby Hogan in Hong Kong; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Factbox: Evacuations from Afghanistan by country

(Reuters) – The United States and allies are hurrying to evacuate as many people from Afghanistan as possible before an Aug. 31 deadline. The combined effort has evacuated more than 114,000 people since Aug. 14, the day before the Taliban entered Kabul, the White House has said.

Here are some more details of the evacuation effort by country:

UNITED STATES

The U.S. military will continue evacuating people from Kabul airport until Aug. 31 if needed, but will prioritize the removal of U.S. troops and military equipment on the last couple of days, the Pentagon has said. On Monday, two U.S. officials said most U.S. diplomats had left the country.

Washington has evacuated 5,400 U.S. citizens since Aug. 14, according to the U.S. government.

There were still about 350 U.S. citizens in Afghanistan trying to leave the country, a State Department spokesman said.

BRITAIN

Britain’s last military flight left Kabul late on Saturday after evacuating more than 15,000 people in the two weeks since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the defense ministry said.

CANADA

Canadian forces in Kabul ended evacuation efforts for their citizens and Afghans on Thursday, acting chief of the defense staff General Wayne Eyre said.

He said Canada had evacuated or facilitated the evacuation of about 3,700 Canadian and Afghan citizens.

GERMANY

Germany ended evacuation flights on Thursday. The German military has evacuated 5,347 people, including more than 4,100 Afghans.

Germany previously said it had identified 10,000 people who needed to be evacuated, including Afghan local staff, journalists and human rights activists. About 300 German citizens remain in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the foreign office in Berlin said on Friday.

FRANCE

The French Defense Ministry said on Friday it had finished its evacuation effort from Afghanistan. During the operation, nearly 3,000 people, including more than 2,600 Afghans, had been brought to France.

ITALY

Italy evacuated 5,011 people, including 4,890 Afghan nationals, among them 1,301 women and 1,453 children, a defense ministry statement said. The last evacuation flight left on Friday.

SWEDEN

Sweden has ended its evacuation mission in Kabul, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Friday. She said that a total of 1,100 people had been evacuated, including all locally employed embassy staff and their families.

BELGIUM

Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Thursday Belgium had ended its evacuation operations. Just over 1,400 people were evacuated, with the last flight arriving in the Pakistan capital of Islamabad on Wednesday night, he said.

IRELAND

Ireland’s foreign ministry said that it had evacuated 36 Irish citizens after the completion of an emergency consular mission on Thursday.

It said it was now aware of approximately 60 Irish citizens and family members plus a further 15 Afghan citizens with Irish residency who are still in the country and have requested assistance, far more than they had initially estimated.

POLAND

Poland has evacuated about 900 people from Afghanistan, including about 300 women and 300 children, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Thursday.

HUNGARY

Hungary has ended evacuations in Afghanistan after airlifting 540 people, including Hungarian citizens and Afghans and their families who worked for Hungarian forces previously, Defense Minister Tibor Benko said on Thursday.

DENMARK

Denmark made its last evacuation flight out of Kabul on Wednesday with the remaining diplomatic staff and military personnel, according to its defense ministry.

Denmark has airlifted about 1,000 people from Afghanistan since Aug. 14, including diplomatic staff, their families, former interpreters, Danish citizens as well as people from allied countries, the ministry said.

UKRAINE

Ukraine has evacuated of all of its citizens who wanted to leave, the president’s chief of staff said on Saturday.

In all, it has flown out more than 600 people including foreign journalists, rights activists, women and children, Andriy Yermak said.

AUSTRIA

Austria says 109 people with Austrian citizenship, residency or work permits have been evacuated. The number of such people left is in the dozens, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told a news conference on Monday, adding that none are citizens as far as he was aware and new people are still getting in touch with the Austrian authorities daily.

SWITZERLAND

Switzerland has wound up its evacuations from Afghanistan after repatriating 387 people over two weeks with the help of the German military, the foreign ministry said on Friday. There were still 11 Swiss nationals there — some working for international organizations — with whom the ministry remained in contact, it added in a statement.

THE NETHERLANDS

The Dutch government said on Thursday it had evacuated 2,500 people from Afghanistan since Aug. 15, with about 1,600 of them brought to the Netherlands. The Dutch ambassador left on the final flight on Thursday. The Dutch have no diplomatic presence left in the country.

SPAIN

Spain has concluded its evacuation of personnel from Afghanistan, the government said.

Two military planes carrying the last 81 Spaniards out of Kabul arrived in Dubai early on Friday, a government statement said. The planes were also carrying four Portuguese soldiers and 83 Afghans who had worked with NATO countries.

Over the course of its rescue mission Spain evacuated 1,898 Afghans who had worked with Western countries, the United Nations or the European Union.

TURKEY

Turkey has evacuated all troops and civilians from Afghanistan aside from a small “technical group” left behind, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

Turkey has evacuated at least 1,400 people from Afghanistan, including about 1,000 Turkish citizens, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier this week.

QATAR

Qatar said on Thursday it had helped evacuate more than 40,000 people to Doha and “evacuation efforts will continue in the coming days in consultation with international partners”.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The UAE said on Thursday it had helped evacuate 36,500 people to date, including 8,500 coming to the UAE via its national carriers or airports.

INDIA

India has airlifted 565 people from Afghanistan, most of them embassy personnel and citizens living there but also dozens of Afghans including Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, a government official said.

AUSTRALIA

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday that Australia had evacuated 4,100 people, including over 3,200 citizens and Afghans with Australian visas, over nine days, with the last planned flight leaving before the airport attack. The other evacuees were from coalition partners.

Morrison acknowledged some Australian visa holders remained in Afghanistan though he did not know exact numbers.

Australia is committed to bringing at least 3,000 more people out over coming months as part of a humanitarian program, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said.

NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand’s Defense Force ran three flights out of Kabul, and the last planned flight had left before the attack, a government statement said.

No NZDF personnel were in Kabul at the time of the explosions and no New Zealand evacuees were left within Kabul airport. According to preliminary numbers, at least 276 New Zealand nationals and permanent residents, their families and other visa holders were evacuated, it said.

(Compiled by Reuters staff; editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Alex Richardson, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Ana Nicolaci da Costa, Nick Macfie, Frances Kerry and Andrew Heavens)

Biden, Israeli PM begin talks in shadow of Afghan attack

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett began their first White House meeting on Friday, with Iran topping the agenda, even as the U.S. leader grappled with the aftermath of a deadly suicide bombing in Kabul during the chaotic U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan.

After a one-day delay due to the Islamic State attack that killed 13 U.S. troops and 72 Afghans, Biden and Bennett met to reset the tone of U.S.-Israeli relations and search for common ground on Iran despite differences on how to address Tehran’s nuclear program.

Tensions complicated relations between Bennett’s predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was close to former President Donald Trump, and the last Democratic administration led by Barack Obama with Biden as his vice president.

But the meeting, the first since the two men took office this year, was eclipsed by Thursday’s attack outside Kabul airport during a U.S. withdrawal that has posed the biggest crisis of Biden’s young presidency.

U.S. forces helping to evacuate Afghans desperate to flee new Taliban rule were on alert for more attacks on Friday.

Biden called the Israeli leader and “thanked (him) for his understanding of the change in time of their meeting, in light of the events in Afghanistan,” Bennett’s office said in a statement.

He said Israel shared America’s sorrow over the deaths.

The delay means that Bennett, an Orthodox Jew who does not travel on the Sabbath, will remain in Washington until after sundown on Saturday.

Iran, one of the thorniest issues between the Biden administration and Israel, was expected to be the main focus of their talks.

Bennett, a far-right politician who ended Netanyahu’s 12-year run as prime minister in June, intended to press Biden to harden his approach to Iran and back out of negotiations to revive an international nuclear deal with Tehran that Trump abandoned.

Biden was expected to tell Bennett that he shares Israel’s concern that Iran has expanded its nuclear program but remains committed for now to diplomacy with Tehran, a senior administration official said earlier.

Bennett has sought to move on from Netanyahu’s combative style and instead manage disagreements behind closed doors.

But he has been just as adamant as Netanyahu was in pledging to do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran, which Israel views as an existential threat, from building a nuclear weapon. Iran consistently denies it is seeking a bomb.

The visit gave Biden an opportunity to demonstrate business as usual with a key partner while contending with the volatile situation in Afghanistan.

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Biden and Bennett are also far apart. Biden has renewed backing for a two-state solution after Trump distanced himself from that longstanding tenet of U.S. policy. Bennett opposes Palestinian statehood.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem; Editing by Howard Goller)