New Delhi:
In what may be dubbed as the lowest point of the Joe Biden administration as the Kabul airport was bombed by IS-K, killing 13 US services personnel among others, it also came to light that U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list comprising names of American citizens, green card holders and those Afghans who were associated with the American campaign in Afghanistan.
According to POLITICO, which broke the story, the move was ostensibly aimed to smoothen the entry of these people inside the Kabul airport as it us under the control of the Taliban, the outrage against the decision rocked the conscience of lawmakers and military officials alike.
POLITICO based its revelations on official sources. As per the report, the move was aimed to expedite the evacuation of people from Afghanistan. The Biden administration, ironically, is dependent on the Taliban for the evacuation, even as it was bombing the latter just a couple of weeks ago.
“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” POLITICO quoted a defence official as saying, though the report did not reveal the identity of the source.
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The context of the outrage is the rather bleak track record of the Taliban when it comes to dealing with those Afghans who collaborated with the US efforts in Afghanistan.
POLITICO report also quoted President Joe Biden, who responding to the revelation, said: “There have been occasions when our military has contacted their military counterparts in the Taliban and said this, for example, this bus is coming through with X number of people on it, made up of the following group of people. We want you to let that bus or that group through,” he said. “So, yes there have been occasions like that. To the best of my knowledge, in those cases, the bulk of that has occurred and they have been let through.
“I can’t tell you with any certitude that there’s actually been a list of names,” he added. “There may have been. But I know of no circumstance. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that here’s the names of 12 people, they’re coming, let them through. It could very well have happened.”
Practically, Biden neither confirmed, nor denied the report.
A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command declined to comment.
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The issue of the list rocked a classified briefing on Capitol Hill this week, as top Biden administration officials defended their decision to collaborate closely with the Taliban.
According to an earlier UN document, the Taliban have been conducting a door-to-door search to root out such Afghans who collaborated with the US and NATO forces or worked for the former Afghanistan administration.
This was revealed in a document by the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, which provides intelligence to the UN.
“There are a high number of individuals that are currently being targeted by the Taliban and the threat is crystal clear,” Christian Nellemann, who heads the group that prepared the report, told the BBC.
“It is in writing that, unless they give themselves in, the Taliban will arrest and prosecute, interrogate and punish family members on behalf of those individuals.”
Nellemann also warned of mass executions of such collaborators.
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