Afghan evacuees to be housed at Virginia base

The Biden administration plans to send the first group of Afghans - who are being evacuated amid threats to their lives for helping US troops during the war - to a military base in Virginia, a congressional aide notified about the plans confirmed Monday.

Spokespeople for the State and Defense Departments later also announced the plans to send the first group of Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants to Fort Lee, Virginia.

"These are brave Afghans and their families, as we have said, whose service to the United States has been certified by the embassy in Kabul, and who have completed thorough SIV security vetting processes," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a news briefing. "They will be provided temporary housing and services as they complete the final steps in the special immigrant process."

According to the plan up to 2,500 Afghans who are in the "very final stages" of applying for SIVs are expected to be sent to Fort Lee while they wait for "final medical screenings and final administrative requirements," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said at separate briefing. That includes 700 SIV applicants, while the rest are their family members.

Because they are near the end of the process, the Afghans are likely to only stay at the base for "several days or so," Kirby added.

Some of the 2,500 may also be sent to other military bases inside the United States in addition to Fort Lee as the Pentagon continues to look at options to house SIV applicants, Kirby said.

The first news reported by Reuters, came after the Biden administration last week formally announced “Operation Allies Refuge,” which officials said would start evacuations at the end of July.

Sending the Afghans to Fort Lee represents a shift from the administration’s initial statements on looking to send them to third countries or US facilities outside the continental United States.

But the Pentagon last week did say it also started looking at facilities within the continental United States in order to give the State Department, which is leading the operation, as many options as possible.

The Pentagon is continuing to look into overseas facilities to house Afghans who are less further along in the visa process than the group coming to Virginia and so need "additional security vetting," Kirby said Monday.

Plans are underway to relocate about 4,000 applicants and their family members outside the United States, Price said.

This group has passed the “chief of mission screening” process, Price said, but has yet to complete the more vigorous security clearance vetting process to come to the United States, which can take several months. 

For those coming to Fort Lee, the Pentagon will provide food and water, "appropriate medical care" if needed and "as much comfort as we can provide," such as providing access to religious facilities, Kirby said. The department will not need to build new housing for them on the base, he added.

Asked why Fort Lee was chosen as the initial site to house the Afghans, Kirby said the base "just made a lot of sense for a lot of different reasons."

Kirby declined to say when the first group would arrive at Fort Lee, citing security concerns.

The Biden administration has faced extensive pressure from lawmakers and advocates to evacuate Afghans who served as interpreters or otherwise helped the US military during the war as the United States nears its final exit from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. The pullout from America’s longest war is about 95 percent done, with President Biden setting an official deadline of 31st August 2021 to complete the withdrawal.

Great Game Begins in Afghanistan

The latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting of Foreign Ministers in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, may have been an under-the-radar affair, but it did reveal the contours of the big picture of Afghanistan.  

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi laid out the basic road map to his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Haneef Atmar. While stressing the Chinese foreign policy gold standard – no interference in internal affairs of friendly nations – Wang established three priorities:

1. Real inter-Afghan negotiations towards national reconciliation and a durable political solution, thus preventing all-out civil war. Beijing is ready to “facilitate” dialogue.

2. Fighting terror – which means, in practice, al-Qaeda remnants, ISIS-Khorasan and the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Afghanistan should not be a haven for terrorist outfits – again.   

3. The Taliban, for their part, should pledge a clean break with every terrorist outfit.

Atmar fully agreed with Wang. And so did Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin. Atmar even promised to work with Beijing to crack down on ETIM, a Uighur terror group founded in China’s western Xinjiang. Overall, the official Beijing stance is that all negotiations should be “Afghan-owned and Afghan-led.”

It was up to Russian Presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov to offer a more detailed appraisal of the Dushanbe discussions.  

The main Russian point is that Kabul and the Taliban should try to form a provisional coalition government for the next 2-3 years, while they negotiate a permanent agreement. Talk about a Sisyphean task – and that’s an understatement. The Russians know very well that both sides won’t restart negotiations before September. 

Moscow is very precise about the role of the extended troika – Russia, China, Pakistan and the US – in the excruciatingly slow Doha peace process talks: the troika should “facilitate” (also Wang’s terminology), not mediate the proceedings.  

Another very important point is that once “substantive” intra-Afghan negotiations resume, a mechanism should be launched to clear the Taliban of UN Security Council sanctions.

This will mean the normalization of the Taliban as a political movement. Considering their current diplomatic drive, the Taliban do have their eyes on the ball. So the Russian warning that they should not become a security threat to any of the Central Asian “stans” or there will be “consequences” has been fully understood.

Four of the five “stans” (Turkmenistan is the exception) are SCO members. By the way, the Taliban have sent a diplomatic mission to Turkmenistan to ease its fears.  

In Dushanbe, a special meeting of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, established in 2005, for the first time was held at the foreign minister level.

This shows that the SCO as a whole is engaged in making its “facilitate, not mediate” role the prime mechanism to solve the Afghan drama. It’s always crucial to remember that no fewer than six SCO member-nations are Afghanistan’s neighbors.

During the main event in Dushanbe – the SCO Foreign Ministers Council – the Russians once again framed Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy as an attempt to deter China and isolate Russia.

Following recent analyses by President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the Russian delegation explained to its SCO counterparts its view counterposing Moscow and Beijing’s effort to develop a polycentric world system based on international law, on the one hand, with the Western concept of the so-called “rules-based world order.”

The Western approach, they said, puts pressure on countries that pursue independent foreign policy courses, ultimately legitimizing the West’s “neocolonial policy.”

While the SCO was discussing the drive towards a polycentric world system, the Taliban, on the ground, kept doing what they’ve been doing for the past few weeks: capturing strategic crossroads.

The Taliban already controlled border crossings with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Turkmenistan. Now they have taken over ultra-strategic Spin Boldak, bordering Balochistan in Pakistan, which in trade terms is even more important than the Torkham border crossing near the Khyber Pass.

According to Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, “the Spin Boldak district in Kandahar province has been cleared of the enemy” – Kabul’s forces – “and the district is now under the control of the mujahideen.” The term “mujahideen” in the Afghan context means indigenous forces fighting foreign invaders or proxies.       

To have an idea of the importance of Spin Boldak for the Taliban economy during their years in power, see the third chapter of a series I published in Asia Times in 2010, here and here. Eleven years ago, I noted that “the Afghan-Pakistan border is still porous, and the Taliban seem to believe they may even get their Talibanistan back.” They believe that now, more than ever.

Meanwhile, in the northeast, in Badakhshan province, the Taliban are getting closer and closer to the border with Xinjiang – which has led to some hysteria about “terrorism” infiltrating China via the Wakhan corridor.

What’s way more relevant is that the Ministry of Public Works in Kabul is actually building a 50-kilometer road – for the moment unpaved – between Badakhshan province and Xinjiang, all the way to the end of the Wakhan corridor. They will call it the Wakhan Route. 

SCO member Pakistan remains arguably the key to solve the Afghan drama. The Pakistani ISI remains closely linked to every Taliban faction: never forget the Taliban are a creation of legendary General Hamid Gul in the early 1990s.   

At the same time, for any Jihadi outfit it’s easier to hide and lie low deep in the Pakistani tribal areas than anywhere else – and they can buy protection, irrespective of what the Taliban are doing in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Imran Khan and his circle are very much aware of it – as much as Beijing. That will be the ultimate test for the SCO in its anti-terror front.

China needs an eminently stable Pakistan for all the long-term Belt and Road/China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects and to fulfill its goal of incorporating Afghanistan. Kabul would be bound to benefit not only from increased connectivity and infrastructure development but also from future mineral including rare earth exploration projects. 

Meanwhile, Hindu nationalists would love to outflank Pakistan and extend their influence in Kabul, encouraged by Washington. For the Empire of Chaos, the ideal agenda is – what else? – chaos, disrupting Belt and Road and the Russia-China road map for Eurasian integration, Afghanistan included.    

Added hysteria depicting Russia and China involved in Afghan reconstruction as but a new chapter in the never-ending “graveyard of empires” saga does not even qualify as nonsense. The talks in Dushanbe made clear that the Russia-China strategic partnership approach to Afghanistan is cautiously realistic.

It’s all about national reconciliation, economic development and Eurasian integration. Not included military component, hubs for an Empire of Bases, foreign interference. Moscow and Beijing also recognize, pragmatically, that fulfilling those dreams will not be possible in an Afghanistan hostage to ethno-sectarianism.    

The Taliban for their part seem to have recognized their own limits, hence their current inter-regional diplomatic drive. They seem to be paying close attention to the inevitable heavyweights – Russia and China – as well as the Central Asian “stans” plus Pakistan and Iran.

Palestinian-Jordanian crisis erupts ahead of Biden-Abdullah meeting

A senior Palestinian official has triggered a crisis between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Jordan after stating that the Palestinians alone had thwarted former US President Donald Trump’s plan for Mideast peace. 

The Jordanians say that they also played a major role in derailing the Trump plan as they feared the plan was aimed at turning their country into an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.

The PA dismissed the Trump plan, which was unveiled in January 2020, as a conspiracy aiming to liquidate the Palestinian issue and Palestinian rights. The Arab League, including Jordan, also rejected the plan, saying it would not lead to peace or meet the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinians.

The crisis emerged on the eve of a meeting in Washington between Jordan’s King Abdullah II and US President Joe Biden.

It also comes two weeks after PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Abdullah agreed during a meeting in Amman to coordinate positions “on the interest of the Arab nation and its common cause, primarily the Palestinian cause,” according to the PA’s official news agency WAFA.

During the meeting, Abdullah reiterated Jordan’s support for the Palestinians “in achieving their just and legitimate rights and establishing their independent, sovereign and viable state on the June 4, 1967, lines, with east Jerusalem as its capital,” Jordan’s official Petra news agency reported.

The crisis erupted during a recent meeting of the Arab Parliament, the legislative body of the Arab League. A video of the rare public, heated discussion appeared over the weekend on various social media platforms, drawing sharp criticism from Palestinians and Jordanians alike.

The Palestinian official, Azzam al-Ahmed, a veteran member of the Fatah Central Committee, said in a speech before the parliament that the Palestinians alone had foiled Trump’s “Deal of the Century.”

“We are the ones who clashed with America,” he said.

Ahmed’s speech was interrupted by Jordanian parliament member Khalil Atiyyeh, who said, “Azzam, you were not alone in the field. Until now, we [Jordanians] are paying the price for our position over the ‘Deal of the Century’ and support for the Palestinians.

“There are conspiracies being concocted against Jordan and the king,” he said. “The Jordanian people are being starved because of their opposition to the plan.”

The head of the “Palestine Committee” in the Jordanian Parliament, Mohammed al-Zahrawi, expressed his appreciation for the position of Attiyeh and denounced the Palestinian official’s “failure to address Jordan’s firm position under the king’s leadership in defending the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people.”

Zahrawi accused the Palestinian official of ignoring Jordan’s role in supporting the Palestinian issue. “Jordan confronted the ‘Deal of the Century’ and all schemes, and was subjected to pressure as a result of its firm stances, which Azzam al-Ahmed deliberately did not address in his speech,” he said.

Several Palestinians criticized Ahmed both for his speech and his participation in the Arab Parliament gathering.

In 2018, Abbas dissolved the Palestinian parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which has been paralyzed since 2007 when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. In 2006, Ahmed was elected as a member of the PLC representing the area of Jenin as a Fatah candidate.

“Is Azzam al-Ahmed still a member of the parliament?” asked Palestinian journalist Naela Khalil. “Didn’t the president dissolve the Palestinian Legislative Council?”

Another Palestinian journalist, Muath Hamed, commented on Ahmed’s speech in a post on Facebook by reminding him that he was not speaking on Palestine TV. “You are talking in front of Arab parliamentarians, not Palestine TV,” Hamed wrote. “This means that there are microphones and the attendees can reply to you on the spot.”

Some Jordanian social media users accused the Palestinians of being “ungrateful” and praised the Jordanian parliamentarian for “silencing” his Palestinian colleague.

Jordanian Professor Faiz Zoubi commented on Twitter, “Thank you Khalil Attiyeh for your firm stance in the face of Azzam al-Ahmed. The Jordanian people and their leadership have been looking after the Palestinian cause for 70 years. The king is now in the US for the sake of the Palestinian cause, and where are you [Ahmed]?”

The Trump peace plan, officially titled “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinians and Israeli People,” was authored by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Why Biden-Abdullah meeting termed eminent?

King Abdullah of Jordan is scheduled to meet President Joe Biden at the White House on 19th July 2021. He becomes the first Arab leader to be welcomed by the US president since he took office in January this year.

The official visit marks a crucial reset to US-Jordanian ties, which had suffered under President Donald Trump. The last time King Abdullah visited the White House was in June 2018.

Announcing the visit Jordan’s Royal Court said it will “cover strategic ties between Jordan and the United States and means of bolstering them across several sectors, as well as the latest regional developments.”

On 7th July, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the visit will “highlight the enduring and strategic partnership between the United States and Jordan, a key security partner and ally of the United States. It will be an opportunity to discuss the many challenges facing the Middle East, and showcase Jordan’s leadership role in promoting peace and stability in the region.”

She added that President Biden looks forward to working with the king “to strengthen bilateral cooperation on multiple political, security, and economic issues, including the promotion of economic opportunities that will be vital for a bright future in Jordan.”

For King Abdullah it is vital that he renews US support for his role as guardian and custodian of Muslim holy places in East Jerusalem — an issue that had come under threat during the last months of Trump’s presidency.

In a bid to woo Saudi Arabia into concluding a separate peace deal with Israel, Western media reports suggested that Netanyahu and Kushner might have been ready to offer Riyadh custodianship of Al-Aqsa Mosque, replacing King Abdullah.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly supported Jordan’s special role at the holy mosque. One thing is clear that President Biden supports the new détente between Israel and Jordan as exemplified by the recently unannounced visit by Bennett to Amman and the ensuing agreement to supply water-parched Jordan with an additional 50 million cubic meters of Israeli water.

In recent years Jordan had become increasingly dependent — to the anger of many Jordanians — on Israeli natural gas and water. Israel also agreed to allow Amman to increase its exports to the West Bank to US$700 million annually, from US$160 million.

Before he left Amman the king met with the Palestinian President, who, according to sources, authorized him to take any steps needed to convince the US administration to revive the peace process. Both Amman and Ramallah lost a lot of political sway during and after the recent Israel-Gaza war, when Hamas emerged as a key player in Palestinian politics at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.

Jordan has no formal ties with Hamas, while Abbas failed to reconcile with the movement, which controls Gaza. Following the death of a Palestinian activist, while in the PA’s custody in late June, protests broke out in the West Bank calling for Abbas’ ouster. The Palestinian leader, whose term as President ended almost a decade ago, has never been more unpopular among his own people. His own Fatah movement has splintered as he postponed legislative and presidential elections earlier this year.

For King Abdullah there are other issues that he would like to discuss with the Biden administration as well. Jordan’s economy is suffering with record unemployment and poverty rates and a soaring public debt. Public pressure is mounting on the government to provide socio-economic solutions — a key factor in a sedition plot involving the king’s half-brother and a former aide aimed at destabilizing the kingdom, which the Biden administration helped expose last March.

Behind closed doors the king, who is accompanied on the trip by Queen Rania and Crown Prince Hussein, will probably ask President Biden to find ways to exempt the kingdom from penalties under the Caesar Act regarding trading with Syria, Jordan’s northern neighbor. The war-torn country is in bad need of basic goods and materials that Jordan can provide, especially to southern Syria. The White House will almost certainly put pressure on the king to speed up the process of adopting genuine political and economic reforms while improving the kingdom’s human rights and freedom of speech records.

But from a strategic angle, the two countries are boosting their military and intelligence cooperation. Earlier this month the US announced that it was redeploying military assets and personnel from Afghanistan and Qatar to Jordanian bases. This comes after the two countries signed a controversial defense agreement last January that was not ratified by the Jordanian parliament.

As the two countries mark more than 70 years of bilateral ties, there is no doubt that the King, who will also meet senior administration officials; Congress leadership; members of the Senate Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and Appropriations committees; and members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will return to Amman feeling much better about the future of this strategic relationship. The question is how will this relationship shape the future of Jordan in a fast changing region?   

Iranian dissidents visiting Israel to seek help for bringing regime change in Iran

A delegation of Iranian dissidents and expatriates plans to pay a solidarity visit to Israel next week with officials from the Trump administration.

The mission is being organized by the Institute for Voices of Liberty (iVOL), a policy institute dedicated to encouraging freedom, human rights and democracy in Iran.

The mission will include eight Iranian expats and four former officials and is meant to demonstrate support for Israel in light of the latest attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, alleged to be Iranian proxies.

The delegation will meet with Foreign Ministry representatives, visit an IDF unit and hear from security experts. It plans to visit towns in the Gaza Strip periphery, as well as the northern border to learn about the threat from Hezbollah. The participants will also tour historic sites in Jerusalem.

The Abraham Accords show there is potential for greater peace, security and prosperity in the Middle East and that Iranians also deserve to take part, despite their hostile and antisemitic regime, former US Deputy National Security Advisor Victoria Coates was quoted as saying.

Coates cited an op-ed she and Len Khodorkovsky, a former senior adviser to the US special representative for Iran, wrote in The Jerusalem Post, calling for a “Cyrus Accords” between Israel and Iranians, named after Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who allowed Jews to build the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

“This iVOL mission is an important step towards realizing that vision; once the Islamic Republic joins so many other ruthless, authoritarian regimes on the ash heap of history,” Coates said.

Khodorkovsky is expected to join the delegation, as well as Ellie Cohanim, former Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, who was born in Iran, and US Department of Defense strategist Adam Lovinger.

Most of the members of the group will be traveling to Israel for the first time. They will meet with Israelis of diverse backgrounds and religions during their visits to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other locations near the Gazan and Syrian borders targeted by the regime in Iran and its terrorist proxies.

The organization “exists to reflect the voices of freedom-seeking Iranians,” said iVOL Board Member Bijan R. Kian, an Iranian-American who was convicted of illegal lobbying connected with the investigation of former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn.

“We organized this historic mission to Israel to show the solidarity of free Iranians with the people of Israel and to separate freedom-seeking people of Iran from the criminal, inept and corrupt regime that has forced itself upon them,” he said.

Iranian dissidents, Institute for Voices of Liberty, Israel, Iran, Cyprus Accord Middle East,

South Africa facing widespread social unrest

Widespread social unrest gripping South Africa following the arrest of a former president saw key logistics arteries for the continent shuttered as rioters torched trucks and caused millions of dollars in damage to stores and warehouses, spurring concerns about looming shortages.

The Road Freight Association says more than 35 trucks have been either wholly burnt out or very badly damaged since July 10 on key routes in KwaZulu-Natal province, home to sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest port of Durban, as well as in the coal-rich Mpumalanga region and the economic hub of Gauteng, where Johannesburg is located.

The arson led to the closure of the N3 highway that links Durban to Johannesburg and is also the start of trucking routes used to transport goods and commodities to and from nations as far north as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Estimating the operational-asset costs to haulers at about US$21 million and counting, RFA Chief Executive Officer Gavin Kelly said that’s just the “tip of the iceberg.”

“The cost to the South African economy will run into millions of US$ lost as business confidence from foreign investors, and those who use South Africa as a transit hub, turn away from us,” Kelly said. “The ‘Gateway to Africa’ has been lost and these attacks will further cement the move of transit freight from South Africa to neighboring countries.”

The freeze on N3 movement is hurting citrus farmers in the country, which is the world’s biggest exporter of the fruits after Spain and is in the middle of its shipment season, said Christo van der Rheede, the executive director of AgriSA, the nation’s largest commercial farmers’ group.

“They can’t harvest their produce because they can’t transport it to the harbor,” he said. Van der Rheede has also received reports of sugarcane fields that have been razed, livestock theft and intimidation of farmers.

Russia warns US against deploying its troops in Central Asian States

Reportedly, Russia has strongly warned the United States against deploying its troops in the former Soviet Central Asian nations following their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow conveyed the message to Washington during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summit with US President Joe Biden in Geneva last month.

The warning comes as the US military said that 90% of the withdrawal of US troops and equipment from Afghanistan is complete. Biden said the US military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on 31st August 2021.

“I would emphasize that the redeployment of the American permanent military presence to the countries neighboring Afghanistan is unacceptable,” Ryabkov said. “We told the Americans in a direct and straightforward way that it would change a lot of things not only in our perceptions of what’s going on in that important region, but also in our relations with the United States.”

He added that Russia has also issued the warning to Central Asian nations. “We cautioned them against such steps, and we also have had a frank talk on the subject with our Central Asian allies, neighbors and friends and also other countries in the region that would be directly affected,” Ryabkov said in an interview published in a magazine.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are all members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and any presence of foreign troops on their territories must be endorsed by the security pact. He added that none of those countries have raised the issue.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan both host Russian military bases. Kyrgyzstan, which hosted a US military base that supported operations in Afghanistan, closed it in 2014.

Uzbekistan, which also hosted a US base, ordered it shut in 2005 amid tensions with Washington.

“I don’t think that the emergence of new American military facilities in Central Asia would promote security in the region,” Lavrov said.

The Biden administration has reportedly considered Uzbekistan and Tajikistan that border Afghanistan, as well as Kazakhstan, as possible staging areas for monitoring and quickly responding to possible security problems that may follow the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“I don’t think that anyone is interested in becoming a hostage to such US policy and intentions, and in inviting retaliation,” Lavrov said.

The Russian foreign minister questioned what results would be achieved with a small US presence outside Afghanistan when a 100,000 strong NATO force inside the country “failed to do anything.”

“Most probably, they simply want to ensure their military presence in Central Asia and be able to influence the situation in this region.”

As the American and NATO troops were swiftly pulling out, the Taliban have made quick gains across the country. They claimed on Friday that they now control 85% of Afghanistan’s territory.

Russian officials have expressed concern that the Taliban surge could destabilize Central Asia.

Taliban advances already have forced hundreds of Afghan soldiers to flee across the border into Tajikistan which called up 20,000 military reservists to strengthen its southern border with Afghanistan.

Last week, a senior Taliban delegation visited Moscow to offer assurances that the insurgents’ advances in Afghanistan do not threaten Russia or its allies in Central Asia.