PrairiePundit

 Red State: ... A standout moment of Trump's for Maher  was his threatening of Taliban leader  Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar during his first term. The story goes that Trump sent Baradar a picture of his house. Baradar asked, "Why do you send me a picture of my house?" Trump replied, "You'll have to figure that one out." Maher described his reaction to the exchange.  Warning : profanity: “When he did that thing where the guy came in from the Taliban and he said, ‘This is an aerial picture of your house. If during our withdrawal one American is hurt, just know I know where you live. I was like, ‘Oh, can we just play the music now? Because I don’t care it’s Donald Trump and he’s the worst person ever, blah, blah, blah — I f–king love that!’” ...  It was certainly a "don't mess with me moment" for the Taliban.  I think they got the message. Even the leftists had to appreciate that moment. See also: Iranian Military Fleeing Yemen, Abandoning Houthi Al...

 Gatestone Institute: [T]he ultimate responsibility lay with USAID. The $40 million on the tarmac was part of a much larger scheme under which USAID and the State Department provided over $1.7 billion in funding to the UN, which then shipped $2.9 billion in cash to Afghanistan. Under the guise of humanitarian needs, $1.7 billion was provided to the UN, which used some of the money to buy dollars to fly into Afghanistan, to trade for Afghan currency, which the U.S. had also arranged to have printed on behalf of the Taliban. The cash is not provided to the Taliban or DAB by the UN, but by the groups funded by the UN. During the intermediate step, DAB held "auctions" of the dollars which elements linked to the Taliban, including the Haqqani network allied with Al Qaeda, reportedly "win." The auctions prop up the Afghan currency and keep the Taliban in power. Putting the money into UN pooled accounts allowed USAID to claim that they "do not provide assistance to or...

 Victoria Taft: Need a race riot in Africa? No problem, USAID is your go-to riot planner. Want to force out a democratically elected president? Call USAID for an information onslaught guaranteed to get rid of any elected populist. Need conservatives censored? Call USAID.       Related:  Here's How Sinister the Deep State 'Blob' Censorship Operation Really Is But you may not have heard this one unless you follow the work of former CIA targeter and Defense Department operative Sarah Adams. See her interview on the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast below.  She tracked the Al-Qaeda operation and  operators  that Jake Sullivan and Hillary Clinton denied were part the Benghazi attack and proved it was a preplanned Al-Qaeda terrorist attack.  And Adams has tracked-back the money being sent by the United States government to our enemies—the people we went to war against to settle the score for 9/11.  Catherine  reports nearby  that USAID ...

 AP: Afghan women are forbidden from praying loudly or reciting the Quran in front of other women, according to a Taliban government minister. It’s the latest restriction on women following morality laws that ban them from raising their voice and baring their faces outside the home. They are already excluded from education after sixth grade, many public spaces and most jobs. ... I get the impression that Taliban morality laws are instituted by very insecure men.  They don't appear to appreciate the women in their community. 

  Washington Free Beacon: Nearly Half of the Taliban Government’s Leaders Are Designated Terrorists Why does this bunch of losers in Washington pretend these people are even ordinary?  They are the same Islamic extremists they have always been who engage in amputations and hangings  

 Washington Examiner: A  former top Taliban military commander who was previously charged with the kidnapping of a  New York Times  journalist was hit with fresh charges accusing him of a host of terrorism-related offenses including helping shoot down an American helicopter and leading a deadly attack on a U.S. military convoy in Afghanistan which killed three U.S. Army soldiers. Haji Najibullah, a Taliban leader who was arrested in Ukraine and extradited to the United States nearly a year ago, was hit with a 13-count  superseding indictment  in the Southern District of New York on Thursday, charging him with numerous crimes spanning 2007 to 2009, including commanding a Taliban insurgent attack which killed Sgt. 1st Class  Matthew Hilton  , Sgt. 1st Class  Joseph McKay  , Sgt.  Mark Palmateer  , and their Afghan interpreter in June 2008. The Taliban attack near Wardak Province involved the use of IEDs, RPGs, and automatic weapo...

  Washington Free Beacon: Afghan Gun Shops Sell US Weapons Seized by Taliban About the only commerce, the Taliban are good at is selling dope and captured weapons.  The chances are remote that they can create a viable economy of other goods and services. 

 PJ Media: Elon Musk is building his satellite-based Starlink service, but he paused launches until some new spacecraft are ready.  Quarts reports  that those spacecraft give Starlink a new capability — the ability to bypass the ground stations that Starlink currently depends on. Starlink users need to be within several hundred miles of a ground station that is plugged into the internet, so the satellites can relay data back and forth between them. SpaceX is not going to be able to set up these stations in authoritarian countries, or likely many of their neighbors. That’s not just a technical issue, it’s also a regulatory and censorship issue. For instance, Afghanistan’s internet and smartphone access went from near zero to about 90% during the war that Joe Biden just threw away. The Taliban are heavy into censorship and are expected to clamp down very hard on free speech. That’s easier to do against conventional, terrestrial internet service. But Musk’s Starlink with its...

 Jihad Watch: Creating a hostage situation is a great pretext for funding Islamic terrorists. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. On August 14, Secretary of State Blinken spoke with Afghanistan’s former president and promised that the Biden administration would provide a  bulk shipment  of dollars. The next day Kabul fell. On that same call, Afghanistan’s former leader  had agreed  to surrender power to the Taliban. The Biden administration had effectively agreed to provide a massive infusion of cash to the Taliban. But the final deal fell through, the Afghan government fled, and the Taliban took Kabul. The bulk shipment of dollars never did arrive. Biden’s diplomats scrambled to evacuate from Kabul. Ajmal Ahmady, the governor of DAB, Afghanistan’s central bank, already had a ticket and headed to the airport. He managed to get on a mil...

 PJ Media: All the progress made by President Trump in the War on Terror seems to have been magically erased by Joe Biden, as the Department of Homeland Security issued a new terrorist threat alert on Friday,  reports  the  Washington Times . According to the report, DHS has detected “signs of life in al Qaeda ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks.” “The signs of life included the Islamist terrorist organization issuing its first new magazine in more than four years,” reads the report. “Homeland Security also reiterated its warnings over dangers stemming from what it has come to call racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists. It said that ‘increased societal strains’ during the coronavirus pandemic may spur greater violence from those elements.” Of course, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security won’t link these signs of life to the Taliban’s nearly complete takeover of Afghanistan, thanks to Biden’s withdrawal. Nope. COVID! Blame COVID! ...

  Daily Mail: 30 Taliban militants are killed in explosion during bomb-making class at Afghan mosque   The blast happened on Saturday morning in Qultaq, a village in Balkh province   Six foreign nationals were among those killed, according to security services   Taliban violence has surged in Afghanistan in recent months despite peace talks   On Monday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance will not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan 'before the time is right' The Taliban should see this as a message from God, but they likely will not. 

Daily Mail: Terror suspect shot and held by Brussels police 'had been jailed for seven years for helping Taliban assassinate Afghan leader two days before 9/11'  According to reports, Abderaman Ameroud, left, who was shot in the leg at the tram stop in Schaerbeek because police believed he had a bomb, helped the Taliban to kill an Afghan leader in 2001. Ameroud, who is of Algerian descent, lived in Afghanistan and was convicted of helping the Taliban to assassinate the commander Ahmed Shah Massod. Mr Masood, who was a prominent Afghan leader in the north of the country, was blown up two days before the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., by two men posing as journalists. It is a mistake to release killers, period.  Not many of these people change their attitude after they set on this path.   What kind of vetting, if any, did they do before allowing him in the country?

Rowan Scarborough: Taliban adopts Islamic State terror tactics as U.S. troops exit Afghanistan The Taliban have kicked up their brutality as they see it successful when used by ISIL.

The Atlantic Wire: Taliban demands unbiased coverage after shooting 14-year-old They are having trouble making the case for taking a 14 year old girl off a bus and shooting her in the head because they did not like her views on education.  I reminded of the time I was listening to the old G. Gordon Liddy radio show and some caller suggested he should give both sides in a discussion of the holocaust.  Liddy responded, "there is no other side to mass murder."

Dawn: South Korean police said Friday they had arrested a Pakistani man who claimed to be member of the Taliban on charges of using a fake passport. The 31-year-old, who said he was a Muslim cleric, was detained Thursday at his home in the southeastern city of Daegu, where he lives with his family, they said. “He allegedly told friends that he was a Taliban member but his claims have yet to be verified,” an investigator told AFP on condition of anonymity. The man had used the passport of another Pakistani to come into or leave South Korea 17 times since August 2003, the investigator said. Yonhap news agency said the man told police he was asked by Taliban leaders to collect information about US military bases in South Korea. Some 28,500 US troops are stationed in the country. ... This is the same mentality that has lead to threats on US soil such as the Fort Hood shooter and the underwear bomber, and recent suggestions of attempts to poison food on an army base in South Carolina. ...

Navy Times: ... The task force was notified almost immediately of the kidnapping, which was kept quiet out of concern that publicizing it might place the hostage’s life in jeopardy and make locating him more difficult, the special operations officer said. For five days, the kidnappers frequently moved their prisoners around the mountains. Then, after releasing the Afghan hostage, they kept the American in an open-air location for about 45 to 50 days, the businessman said. The kidnappers treated him “reasonably well,” he said. “The food was bread and water, ... but for some reason, my bread always turned out stale. ... Their bread when it’s fresh is good stuff, but after three days old, it’s not much fun anymore.” Most of the time, two kidnappers were present. “I had one fellow who was with me the whole time — a young guy — and a second young fellow who was often with me, but not always,” he said. “Sometimes they traded off.” At first, the kidnappers allowed the hostage to keep his hand...

NY Times: The small stone castle, sandbagged and bristling with weapons and American soldiers, rises from a rock spur beside the Landai River. Mountains lean overhead. Once a hunting lodge for Mohammad Zahir Shah , Afghanistan’s last king, the castle is home for a year for an American cavalry troop, an Afghan infantry company, a Navy corpsman and two American marines. In the deadly contest for Afghanistan’s borderlands, it plays what might seem a singularly unattractive role. The position lies exposed near the bottom of a natural amphitheater deep within territory out of government control. Insurgents hide in caves surrounding it and in villages nearby, operating unhindered almost to the castle’s concertina wire and lobbing mortar shells toward it at will. The steep slopes facing the walls are littered with shattered boulders and trees blown to splinters by the artillery and airstrikes with which the soldiers have fought back. The Americans’ mission is to disrupt the Taliban and forei...

CNN: A coalition airstrike has killed a commander of Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Wednesday. ... Taliban commander Mullah Ghafar was killed in a strike in Helmand province Monday. The military blamed him for ambushes and attacks on coalition checkpoints and convoys in Helmand and the neighboring provinces of Farah and Nimruz. There were no other casualties. Ghafar was reportedly one of five Taliban militants released in March 2007 in exchange for kidnapped Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo. But the deal -- negotiated between then Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- was criticized by the United States for putting coalition troops in the region at risk. Earlier this year, Ghafar was reportedly wounded in clashes in Kandahar that killed fellow Taliban commander Mullah Janan. ... Releasing this guy for an Italian journalist was a huge mistake. Killing him is a boost for the war effort. It is further evid...

NY Times: NATO forces in Afghanistan will step up attacks on drug lords and narcotics traffickers who are supporting an insurgency that has rebounded in the past year and is responsible for rising violence, the top American commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday. The comments by the commander, Gen. David D. McKiernan , made clear that international troops in Afghanistan were not going to eradicate opium poppy crops. Afghanistan is the world’s top supplier of opium poppies, which are processed into heroin. But by drawing a clear link between the narcotics trade and its role in the insurgency, General McKiernan was outlining what could be an important and expanding role for American and NATO troops as they seek to eliminate a source of money and weapons for the insurgency. “I think there’s a need for increased involvement in I.S.A.F. in assisting the Afghan government in counternarcotics efforts,” said General McKiernan, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, o...

Telegraph: The "secret" file quoted by a Canadian newspaper said that the French troops ambushed on Aug 18 in a valley east of Kabul did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment to sustain them through two days of fighting. ... According to the report cited by the Globe and Mail newspaper, the troops were forced to abandon a counter attack when the weapons on their vehicles ran out of ammunition only 90 minutes into the battle. One French platoon had just one radio, which was quickly knocked out, leaving them powerless to call for reinforcements. The dead soldiers from that platoon "showed signs of being killed at close range", the report said. By contrast, it said that the insurgents were well prepared and equipped, with expert snipers who appeared to have used incendiary bullets designed to punch holes in armour. Nato and the Paris government denied the existence of such a report. ... It seems clear the French troops were not prepared for that battle, s...