Tag Archives: State Department

‘Leave Now’ US Embassy in Beirut tells Americans if you don’t leave don’t call us for help

Americans leave Lebanon

Important Takeaways:

  • The US Embassy in Beirut is calling on Americans to leave Lebanon as soon as possible as the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies.
  • “US citizens in Lebanon are strongly encouraged to depart now,” the embassy said in a notice to citizens on Monday. “US citizens who choose not to depart at this time should prepare contingency plans should the situation deteriorate further.”
  • Just 1,100 of the estimated 86,000 Americans who live in Lebanon have fled the nation so far, with the US setting aside thousands of seats on flights out of Lebanon since Sept. 27, according to the State Department.
  • The embassy, however, warned that the flights “will not continue indefinitely,” urging all Americans in Lebanon to make a decision sooner rather than later.
  • Embassy officials stressed that any plans for those who choose not to leave “should not rely on the US government for assisted departure or evacuations.”

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State Department warns of terrorist threat

Crocus-City-Hall

Important Takeaways:

  • Law enforcement officials expressed concern that radicals in the U.S. might respond to ISIS calls for similar attacks in the wake of last month’s deadly terrorist attack at a concert hall in Moscow.
  • The U.S. said it shared intelligence with Russia that warned that ISIS was preparing similar attacks on concerts in Moscow weeks before the attack. A State Department official said that the U.S. government had shared information on a possible attack with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding “duty to warn” policy.
  • The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a warning on March 7, advising U.S. citizens to avoid large gatherings for 48 hours, saying extremists have “imminent plans” to target large-scale gatherings in Moscow.

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New study by State Department calls for emergency power to control AI to prevent ‘extinction level’ threat

Great-AI-Divide

Important Takeaways:

  • A new US State Department-funded study calls for a temporary ban on the creation of advanced AI passed a certain threshold of computational power.
  • The tech, its authors claim, poses an ‘extinction-level threat to the human species.’
  • The study, commissioned as part of a $250,000 federal contract, also calls for ‘defining emergency powers’ for the American government’s executive branch ‘to respond to dangerous and fast-moving AI-related incidents’ — like ‘swarm robotics.’
  • The study authors, a four-person AI consultancy called firm Gladstone AI run by brothers Jérémie and Edouard Harris, told TIME that their earlier presentations on AI risks frequently were heard by government officials with no authority to act.
  • That’s changed with the US State Department, they told the magazine, because it’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation is specifically tasked with curbing the spread of cataclysmic new weapons.
  • …advanced AI, they write, ‘could potentially be used to design and even execute catastrophic biological, chemical, or cyber-attacks, or enable unprecedented weaponized applications in swarm robotics.’
  • There is, they write, ‘reason to believe that they [weaponized AI] may be uncontrollable if they are developed using current techniques, and could behave adversarial to human beings by default.’
  • In other words, the machines may decide for themselves that humanity (or some subset of humanity) is simply an enemy to be eradicated for good.
  • Gladstone AI’s CEO, Jérémie Harris, also presented similarly grave scenarios before hearings held by the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology within Canada’s House of Commons last year, on December 5, 2023.
  • ‘Publicly and privately, frontier AI labs are telling us to expect AI systems to be capable of carrying out catastrophic malware attacks and supporting bioweapon design, among many other alarming capabilities, in the next few years,’ according to IT World Canada’s coverage of his remarks.
  • ‘Our own research,’ he said, ‘suggests this is a reasonable assessment.’
  • The PAC, dubbed Americans for AI Safety, launched on this Monday with the stated hope of ‘passing AI safety legislation by the end of 2024.’

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U.S. government said its ability to respond was limited in Russia, encouraged citizens to leave immediately

Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”

Important Takeaways:

  • U.S. State Department warns Americans to leave Russia ‘immediately’
  • “U.S. citizens should depart Russia immediately,” the department warned in a Level 4 Do Not Travel Advisory, which is the highest level advisory on a 1-4 level ranking.
  • The advisory said that “due to the unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces in Ukraine,” there is potential for Russian officials to harass U.S. citizens, and they may also have problems accessing money.
  • “Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on spurious charges, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and have convicted them in secret trials and/or without presenting credible evidence,” the advisory said.
  • The U.S. government said its ability to respond was especially limited in areas of Russia far away from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow due to Russian government limitations on travel, the number of U.S. staff, and ongoing suspension of operations, including U.S. consulates.

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Russian anti-satellite weapons test ‘dangerous and irresponsible’ -U.S

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -An anti-satellite weapons test by Russia against one of its own targets has generated debris that is a risk to astronauts on the International Space Station and other activities in outer space, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.

Experts say weapons that shatter satellites pose a space hazard by creating clouds of fragments that can collide with other objects, setting off a chain reaction of projectiles through the Earth’s orbit.

“Russia’s dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long-term sustainability of … outer space and clearly demonstrates that Russia’s (claims) to oppose the weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

The Russian missile generated more than 1,500 pieces of “trackable orbital debris,” Price added.

At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said the most immediate concern was the debris but the test showed the need for norms in space.

The Russian military and ministry of defense were not immediately available for comment.

The United States performed the first anti-satellite tests in 1959, when satellites were rare and new.

Last April Russia carried out another test of an anti-satellite missile as officials have said that space will increasingly become an important domain for warfare.

In 2019, India shot down one of its own satellites in low-Earth orbit with a ground-to-space missile.

The U.S. military is increasingly dependent on satellites to determine what it does on the ground, guiding munitions with space-based lasers and satellites, as well as using such assets to monitor for missile launches and track its forces.

These tests have also raised questions about the long-term sustainability of space operations essential to a huge range of commercial activities, including banking and GPS services.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Simon Lewis; Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by David Gregorio and Richard Chang)

U.S. taps private groups to help resettle Afghan refugees

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The State Department said on Monday it will partner with private groups to help Afghans who have resettled in the United States after Americans pulled out their troops from the country and the Taliban took over the government in Kabul.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have arrived in the United States as part of an American evacuation. Many of them would have been at risk had they remained because of their work over the previous 20 years with U.S. and allied troops or with other U.S. and foreign agencies.

The new program will allow a groups of adults to form “sponsor circles” to provide initial support to the refugees as they arrive and help them settle in communities across the country, the State Department said.

“Americans of all walks of life have expressed strong interest in helping to welcome these individuals,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

“The Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans harnesses this outpouring of support and enables individuals to become directly involved in the welcome and integration of our new neighbors.”

The program, launched in partnership with the private group Community Sponsorship Hub, will expand the government’s capacity to resettle the Afghans, complementing the work of the department’s nonprofit resettlement agency partners, he said.

President Joe Biden’s administration is working to accommodate as many as 50,000 refugees in the United States. Others evacuees are in U.S. installations or stuck in third countries abroad.

Sarah Krause, executive director of the Community Sponsorship Hub, said the sponsorship program will help create enduring bonds between the Afghans and the communities that sponsor them.

The group will certify sponsor circles by conducting background checks, ensuring participants complete mandatory training, and reviewing their pledges to provide financial support and initial resettlement services to Afghan newcomers for the first 90 days after they arrive in a local community.

Some refugee organizations have been pushing for the United States to adopt a program of private or community sponsorship for individual refugees, similar to a model used in Canada.

Last month, former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama helped launch a new group, Welcome.US, aimed at supporting the Afghan refugees.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S. working to make charter flights from Afghanistan more routine -State Dept.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States has no plans to resume military-led evacuation flights from Afghanistan, but is working to ensure that the existing charter flights become more frequent, the State Department said on Thursday.

“The idea that we’re restarting evacuation flights, à la what we had prior to Aug. 31, is not accurate,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a briefing. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Washington would restart evacuation flights before the end of the year, citing an unidentified State Department official.

“The charter flights have been routine,” Price said. “Our goal is to make them even more routine to lend a degree of automaticity to these operations so that we can facilitate the departure of Americans, of lawful permanent residents and others.”

The United States’ two decades-long occupation of Afghanistan culminated in a hastily organized airlift in August that saw more than 124,000 civilians including Americans, Afghans and others evacuated as the Taliban took over. But thousands of other U.S.-allied Afghans at risk of Taliban persecution were left behind.

President Joe Biden and others in his administration have vowed to continue efforts to get them out.

A few hundred people have been evacuated on charter flights, organized by groups of veterans, and some facilitated by the United States. Washington has also assisted some people to depart Afghanistan via overland routes.

Price added that since Aug. 31, the United States has facilitated the departure of 129 U.S. citizens and 115 lawful permanent residents.

“Our goal is to see to it that working with our partners that these flights become even more of a regular occurrence,” he said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Susan Heavey and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Peter Graff and Leslie Adler)

Blinken denies Taliban blocking Americans from leaving Mazar-i-Sharif

By Humeyra Pamuk

DOHA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken denied on Tuesday reports that the Taliban had blocked Americans attempting to fly out of of a northern Afghan city, but said the group had not allowed charter flights to depart because some people lacked valid travel documents.

Reports have emerged over the past few days that 1,000 people, including Americans, had been stuck at Mazar-i-Sharif airport for days awaiting clearance for their charter flights to leave.

One organizer blamed the delay on the State Department, a criticism echoed by some Republicans who have called on the Department to do more to facilitate the charter flights.

Blinken was speaking at a news conference in Qatar, a U.S. ally that has emerged as a key interlocutor to the Taliban, which seized power in Kabul on Aug. 15 after the Western-backed government collapsed.

Blinken said Washington had identified a “relatively” small number of Americans seeking to depart from Mazar-i-Sharif.

But one of the main challenges around the charter flights attempting to depart was that some people lacked the valid travel documents which effectively blocked the departure of the entire group, he said.

“And it’s my understanding is that the Taliban has not denied exit to anyone holding a valid document, but they have said those without valid documents, at this point, can’t leave,” Blinken said.

“Because all of these people are grouped together, that’s meant that flights have not been allowed to go,” he said.

The confusion was the latest flashpoint following a chaotic U.S. military withdrawal completed after Taliban Islamist insurgents seized power. The United States completed its withdrawal a week ago after a huge airlift.

Blinken added that the Taliban were upholding their commitment to allow Americans with valid travel documents to leave.

“We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostage like situation at Mazar-i-Sharif. So we have to work through the different requirements and that’s exactly what we are doing,” he said.

“A LOT OF ISSUES TO WORK THROUGH”

On Sunday, the senior Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike McCaul, told “Fox News Sunday” that six airplanes were stuck at Mazar-i-Sharif airport with Americans and Afghan interpreters aboard, unable to take off as they had not received Taliban clearance.

He said the Taliban were holding passengers “hostage for demands.”

Noting that there were no longer any U.S. personnel on the ground in Afghanistan, whether in Kabul or Mazar-i-Sharif, Blinken said the United States had no means to verify the accuracy of passenger manifests, among other issues.

“These raise real concerns. But we are working through each and every one in close coordination with the various initiatives and charter flights that are seeking to evacuate people,” he said. “But I just want to emphasize that there are a lot of issues to work through.”

Speaking alongside Blinken, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said his country hoped Kabul airport would be up and running for passengers in the next few days, but no agreement on how to run it had yet been reached.

Turkey is working with Qatar to restore passenger flights at Kabul airport. Both countries have technical teams at the airport and Qatar is chartering near daily humanitarian flights following the U.S. withdrawal, Sheikh Mohammed said.

(Reporting By Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk, Lisa Barrington, Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Tom Perry, William Maclean)

U.S. to reduce Kabul embassy to core staff, add 3,000 troops to help

By Idrees Ali and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States will reduce staff at the embassy in Kabul to a “core diplomatic presence” and send about 3,000 troops temporarily to the airport to assist as the Taliban made rapid gains in Afghanistan, officials said on Thursday.

The news of the embassy drawdown, first reported by Reuters, is one of the most significant signs of concern in President Joe Biden’s administration about the security situation and the failure of the Afghan government to protect key cities.

“We’ve been evaluating the security situation every day to determine how best to keep those serving at the embassy safe,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

“Accordingly we are further reducing our civilian footprints in Kabul in light of the evolving security situation,” Price said.

“We expect to draw down to a core diplomatic presence in Afghanistan in the coming weeks,” he said, adding that the embassy was not closed.

The Pentagon said that it would send about 3,000 additional U.S. troops temporarily to Afghanistan to help secure the drawdown of personnel.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the first deployment would occur in the next 24 and 48 hours to the airport in Kabul.

About 3,500 additional U.S. troops would be sent to the region to be on standby if the situation worsened, as well as 1,000 personnel to help process Afghans going through a special immigration process.

It is common for the U.S. military to send in large number of troops to evacuate personnel in combat zones.

There are thought to be about 1,400 staff remaining at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the reduction in staff was “significant.”

The military mission in Afghanistan is set to end on Aug. 31, and roughly 650 troops remain in the country to protect the airport and embassy.

A source familiar with the situation said that the United Kingdom was expected to make a similar announcement about relocating staff.

Afghanistan’s third-largest city, Herat, was on the verge of falling to the Taliban on Thursday amid heavy fighting, as the militant group also established a bridgehead within 150 km (95 miles) of Kabul.

The spiraling violence and the militants’ swift advances prompted the United States and Germany to urge their citizens to leave the country immediately.

A U.S intelligence assessment this week said the Taliban could isolate Kabul within 30 days and take it over in 90.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Jonathan Landay. Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Humeyra Pamuk, Arshad Mohammed, Simon Lewis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Rosalba O’Brien)

U.S. adds Turkey to list of countries implicated in use of child soldiers

By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday added Turkey to a list of countries that are implicated in the use of child soldiers over the past year, placing a NATO ally for the first time in such a list, in a move that is likely to further complicate the already fraught ties between Ankara and Washington.

The U.S. State Department determined in its 2021 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) that Turkey was providing “tangible support” to the Sultan Murad division in Syria, a faction of Syrian opposition that Ankara has long supported and a group that Washington said recruited and used child soldiers.

In a briefing call with reporters, a senior State Department official also made a reference to the use of child soldiers in Libya, saying Washington was hoping to work with Ankara on the issue to address it.

“With respect to Turkey in particular…this is the first time a NATO member has been listed in the child soldier prevention act list,” the State Department official said. “As a respected regional leader and member of NATO, Turkey has the opportunity to address this issue, the recruitment and use of child soldiers in Syria and Libya,” he said.

Turkey has carried out three cross-border operations in Syria against the so-called Islamic State, as well as U.S.-backed Kurdish militia and has frequently used factions of armed Syrian fighters on top of its own forces.

Some of these groups have been accused by human rights groups and the United Nations of indiscriminately attacking civilians and carrying out kidnappings and lootings. The United Nations had asked Ankara to rein in these Syrian rebels while Turkey rejected the allegations, calling them ‘baseless.’

Turkey has also been involved in the Libyan conflict. Ankara’s support has helped the Tripoli-based government reverse a 14-month assault from eastern forces backed by Egypt and Russia.

Governments placed on this list are subject to restrictions, according to the State Department report, on certain security assistance and commercial licensing of military equipment, absent a presidential waiver.

It was not immediately clear whether any restrictions would automatically apply to Turkey.

It was also not immediately clear if the placing of Turkey on this list would have an impact on its ongoing negotiations with the United States to run Afghanistan’s Kabul airport once Washington withdraws its troops.

Turkey has offered to guard and run Hamid Karzai airport after NATO’s withdrawal and has been holding talks with the United States on logistic and financial support for the mission.

The mission could be a potential area of cooperation between Ankara and its allies amid strained ties, as the security of the airport is crucial for the operation of diplomatic missions out of Afghanistan after the withdrawal.

To carry out this task, Ankara has sought various financial and operational support, and President Joe Biden, in a meeting last month with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had said that U.S. support would be forthcoming, Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan had said.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Aurora Ellis)