Tag Archive for: Kabul

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Blood Is On Their Hands’: Abbey Gate Survivor Describes Coming Face To Face With Joe Biden

President Joe Biden, alongside his wife Jill Biden, entered the hospital room of wounded Marine Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews. They had flowers with them. After shaking hands with Tyler’s mother, Biden began talking about losing his son Beau and his time in the service.

The president, Vargas-Andrews said, made no mention of the Afghanistan withdrawal in which he had nearly lost his life. It was unclear if his Commander-in-Chief was directly addressing him at all.

“[Then] Joe comes over to me, and he leans over, and he just sticks out his right hand, and my left arm is wrapped up in the cast. My right arm is not there, and I’m just looking at him. And he doesn’t even say anything. I’m just like, ‘I don’t have an arm,’” Vargas-Andrews said.

Without saying anything, Biden walked over to a few of Vargas-Andrews’ fingers sticking out from his cast and held onto them.

She falsely added that there are no more American soldiers in active combat zones.

Harris didn’t acknowledge other consequences of her decision to back Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. In the Kabul attack, many were wounded; some lost limbs. 13 American service members were killed.

Vargas-Andrews was one of those wounded. As a result of the Biden-Harris withdrawal, he was left without a right arm or a left leg. His stomach was ripped open, his left testicle exploded and his liver, bladder and spleen were lacerated and punctured.

“It’s just, I mean, it’s disgraceful,” Vargas-Andrews said of Harris’s debate response.

“I’m sure she did support it, as she said she was the last one out of the room,” he continued. “And, it’s the same with John Kirby saying he didn’t see any chaos from his perch when everything was happening. And recently came out saying that he wasn’t going to answer to a handful of veterans for the war in Afghanistan when this evacuation affected the entirety of the global war on terror, veterans and their families, and every single Gold Star family and everyone who lost limbs and everyone who was wounded and had friends die.”

“And it’s like, what was it for? What did they go and sacrifice over there for? It’s just dishonoring to everyone that served,” Vargas-Andrews added.

On Aug. 26, 2021, as the Biden-Harris administration was hastily leaving Afghanistan, about 45 Americans were hit in the attack. Vargas-Andrews was hit with more than 100 steel ball bearings. Nearly 200 people were killed.

Over the span of several months, Vargas-Andrews underwent 49 surgeries at Walter Reed Hospital. During his recovery time, he was fighting for his life.

“[In Germany] they brought my mom in and said goodbye. Resuscitated me both times, two or three. And then I got to Walter Reed, woke me up,” he said. “And over the course of a few days, I was like, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,’ and all I can do is move my head, and my arm is in this giant big foam block. And, obviously I don’t have [my right arm]. And I’m all opened up, tubes everywhere and stuff, and, ‘I can’t breathe.’”

“And they’re like, oh, ‘your pulse is fine. your blood’s oxygenated,’ and I’m like, ‘I can’t breathe.’ And then I just blacked out. Double pulmonary embolism.”

Vargas-Andrews said he had briefly died, adding that he needed to be resuscitated several more times after he had blacked out.

Finally, four months after the attack, two of which were spent in the ICU, Vargas-Andrews was cleared to leave the hospital as a double amputee.

The Biden-Harris administration has long been scrutinized for how it withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. The Gold Star parents have repeatedly criticized the president for the operation and failing to properly recognize their fallen children. Still, Biden reportedly told his aides that he stood by his team, and nobody was fired in the aftermath.

White House national security council spokesman John Kirby later said in April 2023 that Biden was “proud” of how the administration conducted its operation. Harris has repeatedly bragged about being the last one in the room when Biden made the decision to pull out.

The Biden-Harris administration released an internal review of its withdrawal in April 2023, blaming the chaos on former President Donald Trump because he had ordered communication with the Taliban, negotiated a withdrawal date and failed to leave the Biden administration a comprehensive plan on how the operation should be carried out.

“Everyone likes to say, ‘oh, well, Trump’s the one that met with the Taliban … he shook their hands and negotiated.’ Well, when people say that, they don’t like to bring up or look at the fact that there was the Doha Agreement and this long list of how we were going to pull out of Afghanistan, what the Taliban had to abide by, not killing, not raping, leaving women’s rights in place, not harassing us, all this stuff, how, where we were going to exit out of, and all that was thrown out the window,” Vargas-Andrews said.

On the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack, the tension came to a head.

Trump, at the invitation of the Gold Star families, attended a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. While he laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, Vargas-Andrews stood with the former president.

Trump, the Gold Star families and Vargas-Andrews then moved to Section 60 where the fallen soldiers laid. While visiting the graves of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover and Sgt. Nicole Gee, the former president snapped a photo and some videos with the families.

“I met former President Trump, we met him up at the tomb of the unknown soldier first. And he came in very somber, but friendly, and took the time to talk with anyone that wanted to talk to him, and the Secret Service wasn’t crowded around him or anything like that,” Vargas-Andrews said.

From there, the press made a fuss over an NPR report that an altercation occurred between a campaign official and an Arlington Cemetery official over photograph restrictions in Section 60. The Trump team denied the story and a source familiar with the event conversations previously told the Daily Caller that the Gold Star families had approved a campaign photographer to take photos of the ceremony.

“And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, ultimately, those families wanted him there. They wanted his team there. They wanted him to be a part of that ceremony, because he’s the only one in the top of our nation’s government that’s showing them the love and care,” Vargas-Andrews told the Caller, adding that the Gold Star families had wanted Trump to take photos of the event.

Amid the controversy, Harris decided to weigh in. Via tweet, the vice president slammed Trump for filming videos while honoring the fallen soldiers. She wrote that, in her words, unlike the former president, “will always honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s fallen heroes.”

Eight Gold Star families rebuked Harris’s comments, calling her out for never reaching out and ignoring requests to meet.

“It’s a joke that Kamala Harris is going to go on and say anything they can to shut down these families,” Vargas-Andrews said.

“That’s what it is at the end of the day, when you’re doing that, you’re shutting down these families, you’re shutting down the 13 Americans that were murdered on your watch, the 13 Americans that were murdered under the Biden administration, all of the active duty troops that are still in combat zones all over the world that she said aren’t,” he added.

Vargas-Andrews, who has never been approached by Harris or her office, told the Caller that he believes the vice president hasn’t reached out to the families because it would be admitting “that blood is on their hands.”

“She and the current administration are scared of the truth coming to light and having to face the consequences of their own actions and answer for those murdered Americans,” Vargas-Andrews told the Caller.

“If she acknowledges it, either of them took the time to say the names of the 13 Americans that were killed in action that day, that they still haven’t ever said, it would be recognizing their mistakes,” he continued.

While Harris has never reached out to Vargas-Andrews, Biden and his wife only spoke to him once, when he was recovering in Walter Reed.

Vargas-Andrews explained to the Caller that not long after arriving at Walter Reed, the second day he was awake, he was told the president wanted to visit him. Excited, Vargas-Andrews told the nurses to hold all his medication until the president arrived so he could be fully alert for the visit, which was expected to take place within an hour and a half.

But five hours later, the president was yet to show up.

Eventually a secret service agent entered the hospital room, prepping Vargas-Andrews, his mom Tiffany Andrews, and his best friend for the visit. It was in that moment Vargas-Andrews realized that because of the trauma he had endured, he had forgotten who the president was.

“I didn’t think it was Biden. I just was like, oh, man, the president,” he said. “That’s fucking cool. And, didn’t, you know, process in my brain. I couldn’t even, like, make the connection in my brain, good old TBI, I guess. But, I’m like, oh my God, I have no idea who the president is,” he recounted to the Caller.

Before concluding the visit, the president and the first lady took a photo with Vargas-Andrews and his mom. Biden left with some final remarks.

“They snapped a photo, and then, he leans over me, and he’s this close to my face and is like, ‘what do you want?’ I was like, and ‘what?’”

“He was like, ‘what do you want?’ ‘I just want to be me.’ That’s all I said. And he’s like ‘huh?’ and my mom says ‘he said he just wants to be himself.’ And he goes, ‘oh,’ stands up [with a] distant stare, stands up, doesn’t say anything, and Secret Service just rushes him out of the room,” Vargas-Andrews said.

After Vargas-Andrews was wounded, his mom dropped everything to be by her son’s side. She never received any financial support from the Biden administration. Instead several non-profits, including Yellow Ribbon Fund and Semper Fi America’s Fund, stepped in to support Andrews.

Abandoned by the Biden administration, Andrews works with Semper Fi America’s Fund and has connected with members of Congress to help push legislation aimed at supporting caretakers, Vargas-Andrews told the Caller.

The Biden-Harris administration’s lack of support hasn’t set Vargas-Andrews back. The double amputee has become open water diver scuba certified, started skydiving again and is going for his skydiving license. He’s working on getting his flight hours in so he can earn his sports pilot’s license. He’s also teamed up with other veterans to start a business, Flatline HardGoods, that sells t-shirts and hats donning Vargas-Andrews’ motto, “never a victim.”

He told the Caller he is the same man he was before the attack.

When Harris stood up on that debate stage, she may have whitewashed the results of her administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, but for Vargas-Andrews and the Gold Star families, it’s something they can’t ignore.

“You need to answer for what you’ve done, for what everyone’s done, hold yourself accountable,” Vargas-Andrews said, on what message he would give Harris if she ever reached out.

“You need to hold everyone in our nation and our military that’s accountable,” he continued. “I am very doubtful, you know, not doubtful. I know that they’ll never do that. But, it’s the right thing to do … It’s really as simple as that. Those who are at fault need to answer for what they’ve done.”

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Harris Attempt To Attack Trump’s Arlington Visit Backfires Horribly When Gold Star Families Respond

Gold Star families spoke out against Vice President Kamala Harris after she weighed in on the controversy surrounding former President Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington Cemetery to honor the 13 soldiers killed in the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal.

Harris posted a tweet Saturday slamming Trump for filming videos while honoring the fallen soldiers, adding that she, unlike the former president, “will always honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s fallen heroes.” Eight Gold Star families took to Twitter to rebuke Harris’s comments, explaining that they invited Trump to the cemetery for the ceremony and have never heard from the vice president in the three years since they lost their children in the August 2021 terrorist attack in Kabul.

“This is Mark Schmitz, gold star father of Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz. Here we are in a beautiful holiday weekend day, I got to stop what I’m doing, spending time with what’s left of my family, to address a heinous, vile and disgusting post put out by Kamala Harris trying to incite those that don’t follow the truth that President Trump was in Arlington as a political stunt – shows you how much you know about the 13 families, we invited him to be there,” Schmitz said in a video, posted by Trump on Twitter in a reply to Harris’ tweet.

“Groundwork was put into place by Congressman Issa’s office to make sure we followed protocol. Why did we want Trump there? It wasn’t to help his political campaign. We wanted a leader — that explains why you and Joe didn’t get a call. Imagine for a second that your kid is killed. There’s a president in the United States willing to take you under his wing and listen to you. That’s what we found in President Trump, certainly not you, and certainly not Joe Biden,” Schmitz continues in the nearly three minute video continues.

“You have 13 families who have been waiting over three years to so much as get a phone call, to so much as hear our kids names said aloud in the halls of Congress, the State of the Union, hell, anything. The irony behind your post, that you give a rat’s ass about our military or our veterans, Jared’s brothers and sisters in arms, the rest of the 12, their brothers and sisters in arms, is an outright lie. We’re living proof of that. You’re despicable. You have zero business running this country. And I pray to God Americans wake the hell up. and get your ass out of office. You have spit in our face for the last fucking time,” he finishes.

Trump’s trip to Arlington National Cemetery came under fire after NPR reported that there was a physical altercation between a campaign official and an Arlington National Cemetery staffer over photograph restrictions in Section 60, where fallen soldiers of recent American wars lay. The Trump team denied the story and a source familiar with the event conversations told the Daily Caller that the Gold Star families were okay with a campaign photographer taking photos of the ceremony.

Ahead of the ceremony, a Gold Star family told the Caller that Arlington National Cemetery was trying to put restrictions in place to block Trump’s visit — despite it being the families’ request. The situation escalated, causing Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to intervene to help Trump be able to participate in the ceremony, a Gold Star family told the Caller.

Neither Biden nor Harris participated in a public event to honor the 13 fallen soldiers killed during their administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal. Rather, they issued statements the morning of the anniversary while Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery.

“It is not a place for politics. And yet, as was reported this week, Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff. Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt. This is nothing new from Donald Trump. This is a man who has called our fallen service members ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ and disparaged Medal of Honor recipients,” Harris tweeted on Saturday about the NPR report.

Darin Hoover, the father of the late Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, Coral Doolittle, the mother of the late Corporal Humberto A. Sanchez, Jaclyn Schmitz, the mother of the late Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, Steve Nikoui, the father of the late Lance Corporal Kareem M. Nikoui, Jim McCollum, the father of the late Lance Corporal Rylee McCollum, Herman Lopez, the father of the late Corporal Hunter Lopez, Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of the late Sergeant Nicole Gee and Schmitz all filmed videos in response to Harris, which were posted to Twitter by Trump.

“Vice President Harris, my name is Christy Shamblin. My daughter in law, Sergeant Nicole Leanne Gee, was killed in the Afghanistan exit at Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021. This year, for the third year anniversary of her murder, we welcomed President Donald J. Trump to Arlington to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with our family and to visit the cold graveside. President Trump and his team were respectful. They listened to our stories and didn’t talk much at all. We welcomed them that day, and they were a comfort to our family,” Shamblin said in the first video of the series posted to Twitter.

“Vice President Harris, I ask you, why won’t you return a call and explain to us how you call my daughter-in-law’s death a success? Vice President Harris, why will you not express your condolences yourself. Why have we never heard from you? And finally, why would you take a day where we celebrated the death of our loved one and use it to disparage not only them but us? President Trump has called. President Trump shows up. President Trump takes the time to hear our loved one’s stories. Why won’t you do the same, vice president?” she finished.

The Biden administration later reviewed its Afghanistan withdrawal in April 2023. The internal report wrote that Trump was to blame for the botched withdrawal because he had previously negotiated with the Taliban, agreed on a withdrawal date and failed to leave the Biden administration a comprehensive plan on how the operation should be carried out.

Harris has previously said she was the “last person in the room” with Biden when he decided to pull troops and American citizens out of the country. And amid all the backlash, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in April 2023 that the president was “proud” of its operation.

“Vice President Harris, my name is Jim McCollum. I am the Gold Star father of United States Marine Corps Lance Corporal Riley McCollum, killed in Afghanistan August 26, 2021. Your recent remarks related to Trump’s visit to Arlington are filled with nothing but lies and deceit. How do you sleep at night knowing it was you, this administration, you and Biden, you being the last one in the room are responsible for the death of our 13 kids. You failed for three years and eight months to acknowledge our kids, but to acknowledge me. You don’t know me. You’ve never spoken to me. You’ve never reached out to me,” McCollum said in a video.

“You have failed in your duties as vice president. You have been nothing but disrespectful to me and the families of the 13. Yet you’re claiming that you will always be respectful and show respect for our fallen, you’ve been absent for three years and eight months. You’ve proven that you’re not capable to do the job that you have, let alone the job that you seek,” he continued.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘It’s Bullsh*t’: Marine At Center Of New Afghanistan Probe Accuses Pentagon Of Covering Up Evidence

A Marine at the center of a supplemental probe into the deadly suicide bombing during the 2021 U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan accused the Pentagon of concealing information showing it could have been prevented.

Former Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews caused a stir after he testified in March 2023 that he had sights on an individual he and others on the ground believed to be the suicide bomber while in the guard tower next to Abbey Gate, but was denied permission to engage. After CENTCOM opened up a new probe into the incident to address his allegations and found nothing to corroborate them, the former sniper told the Daily Caller News Foundation he agreed the bomber suspect at the time was a “separate individual” from the man the Pentagon just identified as the perpetrator but stood by his testimony.

“That is the truth. For anyone to say that this wasn’t preventable when we had on the ground intel passed to us stating the threat, it’s bullshit. We were told that the bomber was headed to Abbey Gate in real time, we all knew that,” he told the DCNF.

“I believe that a lot has been covered up,” he added.

Vargas-Andrews lost two of his limbs in the bombing, which took the lives of 13 U.S. service members and killed and wounded dozens of Afghan civilians.

Marines stationed in and around the watchtower near Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate may have confused formal intelligence with “spot reports” made by service members in real time that had not been vetted, the secondary review found, according to The Washington Post.

“Over the past two years, some service members have claimed that they had the bomber in their sights, and they could have prevented the attack,” a U.S. official on the supplemental review team said on Friday, according to CNN. “But we now know that is not correct.”

While Vargas-Andrews disputed the finding, he did not dispute that the person Marines at the time believed to be the prime threat was not the eventual bomber, he told the Post.

The first investigation completed in November 2021 concluded a lone suicide bomber managed to bypass Taliban checkpoints but contained nothing to suggest the perpetrator had been identified or that a request to shoot traveled up the chain of command, interview logs show.

Investigators, “although as thorough as they could be,” told Vargas-Andrews and his team during the course of the secondary probe that photos of the bomber, which were taken while the sniper team was tracking threats, could not be retrieved from any facility in the Pentagon or a U.S. intelligence agency.

“They stated they combed through everything high and low,” he told the DCNF. “So what happened to those hundreds of photos, which are potential intelligence? That is a failure.”

Many photos Vargas-Andrews’ sniper team collected, and photos taken by other units, vanished during the course of the chaotic evacuation in August 2021, a person familiar with the investigation told the Post. Those included two individuals the snipers requested to shoot.

One individual nicknamed the “man in black,” due to his black headscarf and shaved head, was thought to be the suicide bomber, CNN reported.

Vargas told the DCNF the photo of the suspect referenced in the report came from a cell phone and was taken from the display on his team’s camera

CENTCOM’s secondary report identified the bomber as Abdul Rahman Al-Logari, an Islamic State (ISIS) operative whom the Taliban had recently released from prison, according to CNN. Cross-comparison of the figures in each photo — CENTCOM obtained al-Logari’s prison mugshot — “received the strongest negative possible rating” they depicted the same person, officials said.

Vargas-Andrews maintained he still had an opportunity to engage the bomber.

“I will stand by my testimony and what we experienced till the day I die,” Vargas-Andrews told the DCNF.

CENTCOM did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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65 Jihadis Identified as ‘National Security Risks’ were Granted Entry into the U.S. after the Fall of Afghanistan

Is the Biden regime really just catastrophically incompetent, or did this operation go according to plan? It does so much to weaken the United States, can it be said with any certainty that this wasn’t another such operation?

EXCLUSIVE – 65 Afghan terrorists were let into the U.S. after Biden’s chaotic withdrawal: Prisoner freed by the Taliban and men who planted IEDs got through dire vetting processes

by Wills Robinson, DailyMail.com, August 13, 2023

Militants who left fingerprints on IEDs meant to kill Americans in Afghanistan and a prisoner freed by the Taliban were among more than 65 terrorists allowed into the United States after the catastrophic withdrawal.

Most of them could still be roaming the country, and the government cannot track them down.

The damning revelations made in a new book add to the laundry list of blunders from the Biden administration during and after the disastrous evacuation of Kabul in August 2021.

It has been two years since the two weeks of carnage at Hamid Karzai International Airport that led to the deaths of 13 American service members, hundreds of Afghans, and thousands left behind.

Yet the evidence of the U.S. government’s disastrous handling of the departure of troops after 20 years and the evacuation of allies is still coming to light.

Sixty-five individuals identified as ‘national security risks’ were granted entry into the U.S. in the 12 months after the withdrawal, Jerry Dunleavy and James Hasson write in Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End.

The book also reveals how the Biden administration missed two chances to prevent the Kabul suicide attack and the dire impact of putting the Taliban in charge of security.

The dangerous individuals let into the U.S. included multiple men whose DNA was found on explosives defused by American forces.

Another was a prisoner ‘liberated’ by the Taliban while they were running riot across the war-torn country on the way to Kabul.

Despite assurances the Taliban wouldn’t surge to power and the US-backed Afghan government would hold, the capital toppled as the Western military left.

An Afghan-American interpreter even identified many Taliban fighters on the tarmac, ready to board flights bound for the U.S….

Read full article.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Family of Marine killed In Afghanistan stunned to learn snipers were ordered not to take out jihad suicide bomber

Old Joe Biden’s woke and desperately corrupt military actively misled the family of one of the soldiers who was killed in the jihad attack.

An update on this story.

Family Of Marine Killed During Afghanistan Withdrawal Stunned To Learn Snipers Could Have Taken Out Suicide Bomber

by Micaela Burrow, Daily Caller, March 26, 2023:

A Marine sniper’s testimony that he had an opportunity to take out the Abbey Gate suicide bomber during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan came as a surprise to family and advocates of one of the service members killed in the attack, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted an investigation into the events leading up to the suicide bombing on August 26, 2021 that killed 13 U.S. military personnel aiding the evacuation of Afghan allies after the Taliban captured Kabul. Family of the deceased received in-person briefings a short while before CENTCOM made public the unclassified version of the final report, but one family member and two advocates said the briefers never provided any indication that the Marine snipers had a missed chance to engage the bomber.

“They said nobody knew where he was at that time or what he looked like at that time,” Shana Chappell, the mother of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, who died in the blast, told the DCNF.

“What [the sniper] had said I had already known about, because other Marines had talked about it before the investigation had even happened,” she added. “There was just a lot of stuff that didn’t add up that I had been told by the Marines that were there, and none of it was mentioned in the report that was given to us.”

The investigation concluded a lone suicide bomber managed to bypass Taliban checkpoints at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, detonating an explosive vest that also contained ball bearings at 5:36 p.m, according to the report. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed up to 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. servicemembers, as well as wounding dozens more.

Briefers, including a Marine Corps colonel, a military justice officer, a major and a non-commissioned officer, presented a slideshow and a spiral-bound booklet to Nikoui’s parents in January 2022 on the events of the attack. Retired Col. Kurt Schlichter, a trial lawyer and media figure representing Chappell, and retired Col. Seth Goldberg, a lawyer, attended the briefing by request to support the family with legal and military expertise, and confirmed the briefing contents to the DCNF.

They told the DCNF that they understood the families of the remaining deceased received similar briefings around the same time.

“There was nothing about knowing who the guy was — who the terrorist was —nothing about having eyes on [him], nothing about the battalion commander being requested permission to fire — nothing about any of that,” Schlichter told the DCNF.

However, at a House hearing on March 8, Marine Corps Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews said he, Sgt. Charles Schilling and an unnamed individual spotted the suicide bomber from their perch in the sniper tower, located near the sewage canal and the gate itself, sometime just before 1 p.m. on the day of the blast, according to a transcript. The unnamed individual had previously provided descriptions of the man who Vargas-Andrews believed to be the suicide bomber.

Vargas-Andrews requested permission to engage with the suspect and presented evidence to the battalion commander, LT. Col. Brad Whited, Vargas-Andrews testified.

“We asked if we could shoot. Our battalion commander said, ‘I don’t know,’” Vargas-Andrews told Congress.

“If it was classified, and they withheld it for that reason, the briefing that the families gave was entirely misleading and you don’t have to mislead to not reveal classified info,” Schlichter said….

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

American stranded in Afghanistan says Taliban is ‘going door-to-door’ hunting for Americans

Meanwhile, Biden’s handlers won’t call the Taliban the enemy, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff claims that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was meticulously planned.

Taliban is ‘hunting Americans,’ says California mom-to-be left behind in Afghanistan

by Brie Stimson, Fox News, September 5, 2021:

House Foreign Affairs Committee member Darrell Issa on the fight to free trapped citizens in Afghanistan and bring them back to America.

A pregnant woman named Nasria, a California native, flew to Afghanistan in June to visit family and get married. As of early September, she remained one of the estimated 100 to 200 Americans left behind in the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces, according to a report.

Now that the U.S. military is gone, the Taliban is “hunting Americans,” she told the Voice of America.

“I think to myself, ‘Am I going to make it home? Am I going to end up living here? Am I going to end up dying here? What’s going to happen?’” Nasria, 25, who asked to be referred to only by her first name for safety reasons, said.

“Apparently they’re [the Taliban] going door-to-door … trying to see if anybody has a blue passport,” she said.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has been working to rescue Americans remaining in Afghanistan, said during an appearance on Fox News that Nasria had been kicked in the stomach by Taliban fighters.

“Anyone who says there aren’t people stranded is wrong,” Issa said during the broadcast.

As the country fell to the Taliban, Nasria and her husband, an Afghan national, hurried to the overcrowded and chaotic Kabul airport in an effort to evacuate.

“It was so hard to get on a flight. There were a couple of days where we had to sleep on streets,” she said. “People were literally stepping over people. That’s how bad it was.”…

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International Union of Muslim Scholars member praises Taliban’s ‘steadfastness and jihad’

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

TREASON: U.S. Officials Gave Taliban a List of Names of Americans and Afghan Allies

Treason is defined as providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Obama committed it when he showered billions upon the Islamic Republic of Iran. And now we have another treasonous administration.

U.S. officials provided Taliban with names of Americans, Afghan allies to evacuate

by Lara Seligman, Alexander Ward and Andrew Desiderio, Politico, August 26, 2021:

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban 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, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.

The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

But the decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command declined to comment.

The issue came up during a classified briefing on Capitol Hill earlier this week, which turned contentious after top Biden administration officials defended their close coordination with the Taliban. Biden officials contended that it was the best way to keep Americans and Afghans safe and prevent a shooting war between Taliban fighters and the thousands of U.S. troops stationed at the airport.

After the fall of Kabul, in the earliest days of the evacuation, the joint U.S. military and diplomatic coordination team at the airport provided the Taliban with a list of people the U.S. aimed to evacuate. Those names included Afghans who served alongside the U.S. during the 20-year war and sought special immigrant visas to America. U.S. citizens, dual nationals and lawful permanent residents were also listed.

“They had to do that because of the security situation the White House created by allowing the Taliban to control everything outside the airport,” one U.S. official said.

But after thousands of visa applicants arrived at the airport, overwhelming the capacity of the U.S. to process them, the State Department changed course — asking the applicants not to come to the airport and instead requesting they wait until they were cleared for entry. From then on, the list fed to the Taliban didn’t include those Afghan names.

As of Aug. 25, only U.S. passport and green card holders were being accepted as eligible for evacuation, the defense official said.

Still, that U.S. officials handed over a list of Afghan allies and American citizens and residents shows the extent to which they outsourced security of the airport’s outer perimeter to the Taliban. The Taliban has gone door-to-door in search of Afghan interpreters and others who helped U.S. and Western forces.

In written and verbal communications, Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, head of U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan, have referred to the Taliban as “our Afghan partners,” according to two defense officials.

The Biden administration has been coordinating the evacuation effort and airport security with the Taliban, which is running the checkpoints outside the airport’s outer perimeter. Officials have been “in daily communication” with Taliban commanders about who to let in, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters this week.

The news comes just hours after two Islamic State terrorist attacks rocked the area just outside the airport, killing at least four U.S. Marines and wounding dozens more. A number of Afghans were also killed in the bombings….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.