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Originally posted by Jon Miller
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This has nothing to do with the very serious problems that they caused by the way they withdrew. You know that.I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh -
Dad of Marine Killed in Kabul Blames Biden for His Death: 'Biden Turned His Back' on My Son
By Grant Atkinson August 27, 2021 at 3:08pm
On Thursday, 13 United States service members died in Afghanistan after the Biden administration’s failed withdrawal. One of the victims was 20-year-old U.S. Marine Kareem Nikoui.
According to the Daily Beast, Kareem’s father, Steve, feared the worst as soon as he heard the news of the suicide bombing near the Abbey Gate of the Hamid Karzai International Airport.
“I stayed home from work yesterday because there was that attack and I knew he was there,” Nikoui told the outlet. “So all day, I was glued to the TV.”
Around 7:15 p.m. Eastern Time in his hometown of Norco, California, Nikoui saw three Marines walking up to his house. They eventually delivered him the news no parent should ever have to hear: Your son has been killed.
“I haven’t gone to bed all night,” Nikoui told the Daily Beast on Friday morning. “I’m still in shock. I haven’t been able to grasp everything that’s going on.”
In a separate interview, Nikoui told Reuters his son sent a video Wednesday of himself comforting Afghan children at the Kabul airport. A day later, he was gone.
“He was born the same year it started, and ended his life with the end of this war,” the elder Nikoui said of his son, Kareem.
Despite his professed desire to “respect the office” of President Joe Biden, Nikoui was unable to contain his emotions while talking to the Daily Beast.
“They sent my son over there as a paper pusher and then had the Taliban outside providing security,” he said. “I blame my own military leaders … Biden turned his back on him. That’s it.”
It’s hard to blame Nikoui for placing the blame on Biden. Before his botched withdrawal plan, no Americans had been killed in action in Afghanistan since Feb. 8, 2020, ABC News reported.
According to the Casper Star-Tribune, U.S. Marine Rylee McCollum was also among those slain. He was just two years out of high school and was expecting a child with his new wife.
“He wanted to be a Marine his whole life and carried around his rifle in his diapers and cowboy boots,” his sister Roice told the Tribune.
Related:
Disgraceful: Biden Laughs as Handlers Herd Away Reporters Shouting Questions About Afghanistan
“Rylee will always be a hero not just for the ultimate sacrifice he made for our country, but for the way he impacted every life around him for the better. Making us stronger, kinder, teaching us to love deeper.”
On Thursday evening, Biden held a sleepy news conference to address the U.S. casualties. He used that time to make thinly-veiled threats that were more vague than frightening.
“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive,” Biden said. “We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Those words seem hollow as America grapples with the reality of 13 completely preventable deaths of U.S. service members. If it weren’t for Biden’s incompetence, who is to say they wouldn’t still be alive today?
No one knows the weight of this question better than the families of those lost soldiers. As for Nikoui, his message is clear: Biden betrayed those brave Americans.I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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Also almost noone focused in the territory outside of the cities, despite the fact that the majority of Afghans lived there ... in small rural villages ... and not the citiesOriginally posted by Jon Miller View PostTamsin (Lost Girl): "I am the Harbinger of Death. I arrive on winds of blessed air. Air that you no longer deserve."
Tamsin (Lost Girl): "He has fallen in battle and I must take him to the Einherjar in Valhalla"Comment
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Taliban kill squad hunting down Afghans — using US biometric data
By
Siddharthya Roy and
Richard Miniter, Zenger News
August 27, 2021 2:59pm
Updated
US Army Spc. Kollisom Guigma takes a retina photo while recording biometric data from a pedestrian entering Afghanistan.John Moore/Getty ImagesMORE ON:AFGHANISTAN
The Taliban has mobilized a special unit, called Al Isha, to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces — and it’s using US equipment and data to do it.
Nawazuddin Haqqani, one of the brigade commanders over the Al Isha unit, bragged in an interview with Zenger News that his unit is using US-made hand-held scanners to tap into a massive US-built biometric database and positively identify any person who helped the NATO allies or worked with Indian intelligence. Afghans who try to deny or minimize their role will find themselves contradicted by the detailed computer records that the US left behind in its frenzied withdrawal.
The existence of the Al Isha unit has not been previously confirmed by the Taliban; until now the Haqqani Network, a terror group aligned with the Taliban, has not admitted its role in targeting Afghans or its use of America’s vast biometric database.
The Haqqani Network is “the most lethal and sophisticated insurgent group targeting US, Coalition, and Afghan forces,” according to the US National Counterterrorism Center.
The US separately has provided the Taliban with a list of Americans and Afghans it wants to evacuate from the country, a move one defense official told Politico was “just put[ing] all those Afghans on a kill list.”
The Taliban special unit, Al Isha, is using American data to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces.John Moore/Getty Images
But the power and reach of the US biometric database is much larger and more comprehensive. Virtually everyone who worked with the Afghan government or the US military, including interpreters, drivers, nurses, and secretaries, was fingerprinted and scanned for the biometric database over the past 12 years.
US officials have not confirmed how many of the 7,000 hand-held scanners were left behind or whether the biometric database could be remotely deleted. The US State and Defense departments acknowledged receipt of questions from Zenger for this story on Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Anton Semelroth said he would forward them to “the right folks” but did not provide answers by press time. State Department press officer Nicole Thompson said the questions were “being worked” inside the agency but also didn’t provide a response. White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The database being utilized by the Taliban includes fingerprints, iris scans, and other biographical information.Tauseef Mustafa/AFP via Getty Images
“Now that Kabul is taken, operational work has taken a back seat and we’ve turned our focus on counterintelligence,” Nawazuddin Haqqani told Zenger in a mobile phone conversation on Saturday. “While most of the brigade is now resting in different madrassas [Islamic religious schools], the Al Isha group is now the principal agency handling this [biometric] data project.”
“We’re in control of the Interior Ministry and the national biometric database they kept. We have everyone’s data with us now — including journalists and so-called human rights people. We haven’t killed a single foreign journalist, have we? We aren’t arresting the families of these people [who are on the blacklist] either,” he said.
“But American, NDS [Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security] and RAW’s [India’s Research and Analysis Wing] puppets won’t be let off. They will always be watched by Al Isha. Those who were barking about having US dollars in their pockets till a few days back — they won’t be spared. They can’t be spared, can they?”
The database can also be used to find any person who worked with British, European or Indian intelligence services.John Moore/Getty Images
The database, which includes fingerprints, iris scans, and other biographical data, was housed in a white-washed building at the Ministry of Interior in Kabul. “The centerpiece of the program is the Afghan Automated Biometric Identification System (AABIS), administered by about 50 Afghans at the Ministry of Interior in Kabul,” according to a 2011 FBI news release. The US Army issued an official “Commander’s Guide to Biometrics In Afghanistan” manual in 2011.
The U.S. started with data from some 300,000 Afghans in 2009, mainly prisoners and Afghan soldiers according to NATO, and the biometrics center opened in November 2010. US officials aimed to compile information on as many as 25 million Afghans, roughly 80 percent of the population, Annie Jacobsen, author of “First Platoon: A Story of Modern War in The Age of Identity Dominance” (Penguin, 2020), told National Public Radio last year. The exact number of Afghans covered by the database remains classified.
At first, the US hoped to use the biometric database to spot Taliban infiltrators or catch the makers of roadside bombs, which had claimed the lives of hundreds of American and allied sources since 2001. Later, it evolved into a way to identify virtually every Afghan that US forces hired or visited. By 2014, the US Army was calling its strategy “identity dominance.”
SEE ALSO
Biden admits admin may have given Taliban ‘kill list’ of Afghans who aided US
Now that identity dominance belongs to the Taliban.
“We are not collecting new data — we already have it,” said Nawazuddin Haqqani. “The group [Al Isha] just keeps an eye that if someone has worked for America or the National Directorate of Security [the former Afghan government’s intelligence agency].”
The database is also used to find any person who worked with British, European or Indian intelligence services, he said. “The matter is being blown out of proportion by the foreign media and its nothing more than a campaign to malign us,” he said. He contended that the database was used to spare the lives of foreign journalists.
The Al Isha unit has more than doubled in size, from 500 to nearly 1,100 over the past month, he told Zenger, and spread out into many of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
Asked about reports that Pakistani intelligence officers were supervising the Al Isha unit’s use of biometric data to interrogate former U.S. allies, Nawazuddin Haqqani didn’t deny the Pakistan connection.
Army Spc Alex Laughton ID scans eyes of an Afghan man for Automated Biometric Identification System.AFP via Getty Images
“You are not that naive — you know the answer to that,” he said. “But what I can say is, it’s not necessary to train everyone in Pakistan. The Emirs [local Taliban chieftains] are quite capable of training the foot soldiers to handle the equipment.”
This suggests Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, has access to America’s biometric database. If Al Isha can identify Indian intelligence sources in Afghanistan, the Pakistanis will pursue them as well.
Asked about details of the data collection, he refused to answer and said: “This is a question which [Taliban political spokesperson Suhail] Shaheen should answer.”
Shaheen declined to comment on the existence of Al Isha, the presence of Pakistani intelligence officers and the use of U.S.-made biometric technology in Afghanistan.
Nawazuddin Haqqani revealed the history and command structure of the Al Isha unit. “The Al Isha isn’t a new thing. It’s one of the three groups under the Khalil Haqqani Brigade,” he said.
SEE ALSO
Biden blames ISIS, vows revenge for Kabul airport bombing, but sticks to withdrawal deadline
The brigade is a military unit of more than 2,000 fighters that is named after Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million bounty on his head and leads the Badri 313 unit, which recently mocked the iconic photo of U.S. Marines raising an American flag on Iwo Jima.
Khalil Haqqani is the brother of the late Jalaluddin Haqqani, who mentored Osama Bin Laden and later served as a cabinet minister for the Taliban in the 1990s.
Nawazuddin Haqqani is a member of the Haqqani clan whom Khalil personally put in charge of counterintelligence operations in Kabul. In many ways, Nawazuddin is treated as Khalil’s son. But their exact family relationship is debated among western intelligence analysts and is a sensitive topic that Taliban and Haqqani sources refuse to comment on.
In a different part of Kabul, a 26-year-old former Afghan National Army corps commander was reached on his mobile phone on Aug. 16, hours after the Taliban seized the city.
“Well, I have reached home safely and am with my parents, wife and child,” he said. “But I don’t think I will be here for long. They’re going door to door and scanning everyone with biometric scanners, and they’ll knock on my doors anytime now.”
Asked if he was referring to the Taliban, his words were precise: “The Al Isha actually.” The corps commander, who asked that his name be withheld because Al Isha is actively hunting him, says he is in the biometric database because of his volunteer work as a media coordinator with an Afghan nonprofit organization.
“The Afghan Taliban are incapable of handling the biometric equipment or the database” he said. “Every search party is overseen by a Pakistani officer or a member of the Haqqani Network.”I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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They way we withdrew was dictated by the peace treaty between the US and Taliban, which our allies (including Afghan Allies) were not party to, almost 18 months ago. The only significantly different option would have been to tear it up, which would have had consequences and required 10s thousands of more troops on the ground, possibly more the previous maximum.Originally posted by Kidicious View Post
JMJon Miller-
I AM.CANADIAN
GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.Comment
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You're just lying. Even if your claim were true a cease-fire is not a suicide pact. You don't let this happen period. This is worse than breaking a cease-fire with terrorists.Originally posted by Jon Miller View PostI drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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Oh, ok. I don't consider "letting Biden off the hook" to be humorous and I'm not a psychopath. Does that answer your question(s)?Originally posted by Kidicious View PostComment
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I already knew the answer.I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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Too bad the US puppet regime didn't have the balls to exterminate any suspected Taliban sympathizers.Comment
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Yeah. Too bad the US "didn't have the balls" to defeat the Taliban. I guess no one has to resign though because they don't like white rage.I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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they were complying with their agreement to stop killing our soldiers, trump told me thatOriginally posted by Kidicious View PostComment
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They released Al Qaeda prisoners and they attacked Afghan units. They broke the cease-fire. Therefore there was no cease-fire. Fact.Originally posted by Berzerker View PostI drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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And yet neither Trump nor Biden did anything about it!Originally posted by Kidicious View PostI am not delusional! Now if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna go dance with the purple wombat who's playing show-tunes in my coffee cup!
Rules are like Egg's. They're fun when thrown out the window!
Difference is irrelevant when dosage is higher than recommended!Comment
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No president did anything for 20 years. I knew it was screwed up when it took so long to kill Bin Laden.I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett KavanaughComment
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I just want to say that I read every of Kid's poasts carefully and many times.BlahComment
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