The Morning Dispatch: A Horrific Day in Afghanistan

Happy Friday. Let’s get right to it.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• More than 100 people were killed in a series of suicide bombings outside the Kabul airport—including at least 13 U.S. service members and 90 Afghans—making Thursday the deadliest day for the U.S. military in Afghanistan since 2011. At least 18 American troops were injured as well, according to Central Command. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan (ISIS-K) claimed responsibility for the attack, and President Biden attributed it to the group as well, telling reporters he has ordered the Pentagon to “develop operational plans to strike ISIS-K assets, leadership, and facilities.” CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said yesterday that the U.S. has evacuated approximately 100,000 people and plans to continue its mission, with about 1,000 U.S. citizens remaining in the country.

• The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration’s updated eviction moratorium, issuing an unsigned order making clear that “if a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it.” The court’s three liberal justices dissented.

• In an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, Lt. Michael Byrd—a 28-year veteran of the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP)—revealed himself to be the officer who shot and killed January 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt. The USCP announced earlier this week its internal investigation of the incident cleared Byrd of any wrongdoing, determining his actions were “lawful” and “within Department policy.”

• The Department of Education announced Thursday that it will forgive $1.1 billion in federal student loans for people who attended ITT Technical Institute and left after March 2008 without receiving a degree. “This action extends relief to borrowers whose attendance at ITT overlapped with a period during which the institution engaged in widespread misrepresentations about the true state of its financial health and misled students into taking out unaffordable private loans that were allegedly portrayed as grant aid,” the Department said.

• Initial jobless claims increased by 4,000 week-over-week to 353,000 last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.

• Apple reached a settlement with app developers on Thursday that will allow developers to encourage customers to pay them outside the iOS app, which would save developers from having to pay Apple’s commission fee. 

A Deadly Day in Kabul

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to end a 20-year war,” President Joe Biden said Thursday, finishing his remarks on Kabul’s deadly suicide bombings with a flourish ill-suited to its occasion. 

More than 100 people, Afghan and American, died yesterday in two attacks on U.S. military personnel and evacuating civilians bottlenecked outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport. Hundreds more were injured in the explosions and subsequent onslaught by armed fighters. Scenes of families scrambling to flee the scene—carrying their dead and wounded—quickly circulated across social media.

For American forces, Thursday marked the deadliest day of the war in Afghanistan since 2011, with a confirmed 13 servicemembers killed and 18 more injured as of Thursday night. For Afghans, the bombings were another  in long a string of jihadist attacks targeting the country’s civilian population.

Afghanistan’s Islamic State branch, often abbreviated as ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the suicide vest detonation, in line with U.S. intelligence predictions. The group is known for carrying out high-profile attacks on noncombatant targets, including a May 2021 car bombing in Kabul that killed more than 90 people and injured 240 others. 

As an adversary to the fallen Afghan government, the Taliban, and the U.S. and NATO allies, ISIS-K has been heavily targeted and driven underground in recent years, but continues to conduct terror operations in urban areas nevertheless. 

The Biden administration reiterated concerns about the Kabul airport’s deteriorating security over the course of the week, advising Americans and Afghan partners to steer clear of the area unless given specific instructions. Statements from Biden, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken alluded to possible attack as recently as late Wednesday. 

“It’s hard to overstate the complexity and the danger of this effort. We’re operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the Taliban, with the very real possibility of an ISIS-K attack,” Blinken said in a briefing. “We’re taking every precaution, but this is very high-risk.”

James Heappey, the U.K.’s armed forces minister, also issued a caution to those on the ground just hours before the bombing on Thursday. “The credibility of the reporting has reached the stage where we believe there is a very imminent, a highly lethal attack, possibly within Kabul,” he told a local television station.

“ISIS has lost a lot of territory in Afghanistan over the past couple of years to a combination of Taliban offensives and U.S.-backed government offensives, but it still maintains networks in Kabul capable of very, very, very deadly attacks,” said Wesley Morgan, author of The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley. “The U.S. military has known that this is a serious risk as part of the operation they’re conducting in Kabul, and they’ve broadcast that in recent days.”

Given the West’s apparent foreknowledge of an impending attack, how were Islamic State jihadists able to carry it out so successfully?

In a briefing yesterday afternoon, CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. explained his “working assumption” on what went wrong. An explosive-laden fighter made it through Taliban checkpoints surrounding the airport’s outer perimeter, eventually reaching U.S. troops responsible for guarding the airport gates before detonating the vest in a mass of evacuees. Another set off explosives at the nearby Baron Hotel.

The Taliban, meanwhile, placed blame on the U.S. for failing to thwart an attack “in an area where U.S. forces are responsible for security,” spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter Thursday. “The Islamic Emirate is paying close attention to the security and protection of its people, and evil circles will be strictly stopped.” 

Despite ongoing terror threats posed by the Islamic State, the U.S. plans to continue its evacuation efforts. “Let me be clear. While we’re saddened by the loss of life, both U.S. and Afghan, we’re continuing to execute the mission,” McKenzie said. “Our mission is to evacuate U.S. citizens, third country nationals, Special Immigrant Visa holders, U.S. Embassy staff, and Afghans at risk.”

But the Pentagon’s strategy for doing so now rests squarely on the shoulders of the Taliban. The group, McKenzie said, had been “useful to work with” in combating security concerns—a dubious claim given the events of the past 24 hours. 

In condemning the attacks, the Biden administration has sought to draw clear distinctions between ISIS-K and the Taliban—but the two groups are far more similar than the White House has let on, even if an internal power struggle prevents them from getting along with each other.

“It’s the result of asking one terrorist organization that uses suicide bombers, that would be the Taliban, to protect American citizens from another terrorist organization that uses suicide bombers, and that’s the Islamic State. We shouldn’t be surprised at the outcome,” Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and editor of its Long War Journal. “This is how we got here, right? They thought they could negotiate with the Taliban in good faith, and that led to the collapse of the Afghan government. They think they can work with the Taliban to secure an airport, you get a suicide attack.” 

Meanwhile, 250,000 Afghans eligible for expedited U.S. visas and more than 1,000 U.S. citizens remain stranded in Afghanistan as of Wednesday. 

Biden insisted an efficient and total evacuation is within the Taliban’s strategic interest: “No one trusts them; we’re just counting on their self-interest to continue to generate their activities.” But it could also be in the Taliban’s interest to exploit a potential hostage crisis for global and financial leverage and punish Afghans it deems responsible for its downfall two decades ago, particularly given Biden’s public commitment to an unconditional military withdrawal in five days.

As Politico detailed in a report Thursday, many of these individuals are now at heightened risk precisely because of the U.S.’s unfounded confidence in the Taliban. According to three administration and congressional officials, the U.S. gave the jihadist group documentation of all American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies remaining in the country to hasten the evacuation process. One official described the record as a “kill list” for those Afghans left behind. 

Given the mounting logistical issues surrounding the mass evacuation, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pushed for an extension of the U.S. pullout. 

“My heart breaks for the loved ones of the U.S. servicemembers and others who were murdered in this horrific terror attack,” Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan said Thursday. “I continue to urge the administration to do everything in its power to secure the airport and evacuate every American, as well as our partners who stood side-by-side with our troops to combat terrorism. We must complete this mission, regardless of any arbitrary deadlines.” 

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, who for weeks has urged the administration to retake parts of Kabul to ensure a safe departure, also called for an extension. “Mr. President, there is a clear choice before you now: Either rip up the August 31 deadline and defend evacuation routes—by expanding the perimeter around the Kabul airport or by retaking Bagram—or leave our people behind in your retreat,” Sasse said in a statement. “We simply cannot strand Americans behind enemy lines in the new capital city of global jihad.” 

In his planned remarks, the president sought to send  a forceful message to ISIS-K: “To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”

But in the months since Biden announced the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, he has yet to articulate a viable counterterrorism plan in a country now ruled by jihadists. According to Roggio, the administration’s plan isn’t over-the-horizon, as administration officials have called it, but “over-the horizon’s-horizon” with our diminished aerial surveillance capabilities and the loss of the fallen Afghan government’s spy network, the National Directorate of Security.

“What happens in Afghanistan doesn’t stay in Afghanistan. The jihadists that the Taliban have supported over the years will be using Afghanistan as a base and safe haven,” Roggio told The Dispatch. “You can expect the threat to increase in places like Kashmir, the Middle East, and beyond. Just as the Islamic State taking control of territory in 2013 and 2014 in Syria was a boon for their global jihad, what happened in Afghanistan will be a boon for al-Qaeda.”

A Defeat of Choice

Over the course of our nearly two-year existence, The Dispatch has published only one staff editorial—on January 7, 2021. Today, we make it two.

When President Joe Biden addressed the country after the attacks, he offered somber and appropriate gratitude for the sacrifices of our servicemembers. But as he has so many times over this crisis of his own making, Biden also offered politically self-serving distortions that spun the reality of the unfolding crisis to a point that it was almost unrecognizable. He celebrated “an airlift and evacuation effort unlike any seen in history,” as if the chaotic retreat of American forces were a moment of triumph. He said “this is the way [our mission] was designed to operate, operate under severe stress and attack,” as if it was all part of the plan. He pledged that “these ISIS terrorists will not win” and emphasized that they are “an archenemy of the Taliban,” an awkward attempt to contrast the jihadists who conducted these attacks with the jihadists his administration is relying on as the U.S. military’s new counterterrorism partner. 

It’s an absurd proposition. But the Biden administration—out of naivete, desperation or both—is determined to test it. Politico reported Thursday that the U.S. government provided the Taliban with “a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport.” This is the same Taliban whose deputy leader, Siraj Haqqani, has a $10 million bounty on his head from the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program. The same Taliban that has harbored al-Qaeda for more than two decades, helping those terrorists lay the groundwork for the 9/11 attacks and the war they knew would follow. The same Taliban that freed thousands of imprisoned jihadists—from ISIS, from al-Qaeda—as it took the country. The same Taliban responsible for the deaths of Americans in Afghanistan by the hundreds. The same Taliban that controls access to the airport and the very gates where ISIS terrorists were able to detonate their bombs. The enemy of our enemy is not our friend, no matter how much our leaders might wish it were so. The enemy of our enemy is our enemy. 

Contrary to a common claim, the invasion of Afghanistan was never a “war of choice.” Politically, strategically, and morally, Congress and the president had as much choice to respond militarily after the attacks of September 11, 2001, as their predecessors did in 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We cannot dispute that the two-decade war effort was subject to deplorable mission creep and mismanagement. But it is no less indisputable that what we’ve witnessed over the course of Afghanistan’s cruelest summer is a defeat of choice.

…

Our case for remaining wasn’t about “nation-building,” but let us acknowledge that building a somewhat decent, falteringly democratic, society that let women get an education or a job was an ancillary moral and strategic benefit of protecting America and her interests. And even if you do not care about such things, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Afghans did. They cast their lot with us. Now those stranded souls—who understand the Taliban better than any expert in the Biden administration or pundit on cable TV—are shoving their babies over barbed-wire fences and hiding in the wheel wells of American planes. They aren’t merely “voting with their feet”—they’re voting with their lives, and the lives of their children.

Worth Your Time

• In his latest Washington Post column, national security writer David Ignatius—well-sourced within the Biden administration—takes readers inside a “badly shaken” White House following Thursday’s attacks. “The catastrophe in Kabul has spawned some finger-pointing and second-guessing in what has been a congenial Biden administration,” he writes. “To some White House officials, the military followed Biden’s order to withdraw troops all too quickly, with its commander and most forces gone by early July. The Pentagon counters that the timetable was explicitly endorsed by the White House. Officials across the government complain that the State Department failed to reduce staffing at the embassy soon enough or to prepare visa paperwork for the thousands of Afghan civilians who would need to be evacuated if Kabul fell. And while the CIA warned that the Afghan government was shaky, even pessimists thought it might not fall until October or November.”

Presented Without Comment

Also Presented Without Comment

Toeing the Company Line

• David felt a little strange writing a newsletter while Thursday’s chaos in Kabul was still unfolding, so his second French Press this week (🔒) simply includes a series of thoughts on the moment we’re living through. “If our long war on terror has taught us anything, it’s that granting terrorists safe havens exponentially magnifies the terror threat,” he writes. “Jihadist campaigns take time and resources to plan. It’s no coincidence that the 1998 American embassy bombings in Africa, the near-sinking of the USS Cole in 2000, and the 9/11 attacks took place when jihadists enjoyed the ‘time and space to operate.’”

• Jonah is back in The Remnant saddle, joined Thursday by fan-favorite A.B. Stoddard for a conversation about intra-Democratic Party divisions, the coronavirus’ resurgence, and Afghanistan’s collapse. Which has most contributed to President Biden’s plunging approval rating?

• Just more than 40 years ago, the town of Tomah, Wisconsin, welcomed thousands of Cuban refugees from the Mariel Boatlift. Today, the same town is getting ready to welcome Afghan refugees. Christian Schneider reports from Tomah.

• Our defeat in Afghanistan has prompted many to rethink our foreign policy. Mike Watson of the Hudson Institute argues now is not a time for neo-isolationism, nor a time to double down on interventionism. It’s time for reform, he writes. 

Let Us Know

Do you agree with our editorial today? Why or why not?

Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Charlotte Lawson (@charlotteUVA), Ryan Brown (@RyanP_Brown), Harvest Prude (@HarvestPrude), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).