Taliban raises flag over presidential palace in Kabul 20 years after 9/11: LIVE UPDATES
The flag-raising signified the beginning of the all-male, all-Taliban government in Afghanistan. The international community had hoped the group would follow through on its hollow promises to have more inclusive leadership. Former U.S-backed President Hamid Karzai marked 9/11 with a meeting of tribal leaders at his compound and publicly called for “peace and stability."
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Rep. David Nunes, R-Calif., appeared on "Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy" to discuss Afghanistan and the upcoming recall election in California.
Gowdy opened his show discussing President Biden’s desperation to turn America’s attention away from the Afghanistan withdrawal. However, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to testify in front of the House and Senate committees to discuss the administration’s role in the failure to properly evacuate U.S. citizens.
Women in Afghanistan can continue to study in universities, including at post-graduate levels, but classrooms will be gender-segregated and Islamic dress is compulsory, the Taliban government's new higher education minister said Sunday.
The announcement came as a Taliban official said Qatar's foreign minister arrived in the Afghan capital of Kabul — the highest-level visitor since the Taliban announced their interim Cabinet. There was no immediate confirmation of the visit by Qatari officials.
Former President Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump blasted the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan and speculated that China and Russia could already be reverse-engineering U.S. military equipment left behind.
Speaking with host Sharyl Attkisson during an interview that aired Sunday on "Full Measure," Trump excoriated the withdrawal as "incompetent" and warned it will likely endanger the United States and benefit its enemies.
Trump also expressed doubt regarding whether the war in Afghanistan is over, noting how many unvetted Afghan refugees are being resettled in the United States and around the world.
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared in a video released Saturday — the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks — raising questions over his rumored death.
The US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist groups online, tweeted about the existence of the video, saying Zawahiri made comments about events that occurred after speculation first emerged that he’d died.
"Amid rumors of his death, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri shown in a new 60-minute video, this time offering some evidence that he is not dead – particularly, reference to events after December when rumors of death surfaced," SITE director Rita Katz tweeted.
Lt. Col. Oliver North slammed the Biden administration’s "blatant lie" for vowing to get Americans and allies out before the Afghanistan withdrawal, arguing everyone wants "accountability" during an appearance on "Sunday Morning Futures."
LT. COL. OLIVER NORTH: I talked with veterans of this war, Gold Star families, those who had been there when this whole incredibly aborted operation took place. And everybody wants one thing, and that's accountability. Hopefully there's going to be accountability as to why they gave away Bagram, one of the best military bases in the world. … Why did they give it away? It wasn't taken by the Taliban, it was given to the Taliban.
President Biden’s recent withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan will pave a "path to another 9/11," U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz said on Sunday.
Waltz, R-Fla., the first Green Beret to serve in Congress, told "Sunday Morning Futures" anchor Maria Bartiromo that the Biden administration’s "reckless" pullout will result in the next generation of Americans returning to Afghanistan to deal with the rise of Al Qaeda.
Plenty of people have pointed out what went wrong in Afghanistan, but far too few people have asked who should now be held accountable for this national disgrace.
The debacle in Afghanistan should be setting off alarm bells in Washington. We surrendered the country that we’d been defending to a seventh-century tribe, which had endured immense casualties and was unable to defeat the U.S. on the battlefield. But the Taliban was able to defeat America politically and psychologically.
A man walks down the stairs at dusk in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Hamid Karzai, the former U.S.-backed president of Afghanistan who led the country after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, met with tribal leaders inside his high-walled compound Saturday as the world marked 20 years since 9/11.
Karzai has remained inside his compound with his family since the Taliban took over again last month.
In a tweet, Karzai called for “peace and stability” and expressed the hope that the new Cabinet which included no women and no non-Taliban would become an “inclusive government that can be the real face of the whole Afghanistan.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The body of a U.S. Marine killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan has returned home to Massachusetts on the 20th anniversary of the attacks that led to the war.
Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, was among the U.S. service members and Afghans killed in the Aug. 26 bombing near the Kabul airport.
Gov. Charlie Baker, Boston Mayor Kim Janey and U.S. Sen. Edward Markey paid their respects to her family as the body arrived Saturday at Boston’s Logan International Airport.
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Former military officials agreed on Saturday that President Biden's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan could not have gone much worse and potentially left the U.S. "vulnerable" to another large-scale terror attack.
Former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik, Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, and retired army ranger Rep. Brian Mast, who served in Afghanistan, blasted the commander in chief on "Watters World" Saturday, which marked 20 years since the 9/11 terror attacks.
"We basically surrendered Afghanistan and gave it back to the Taliban," Kerik said.
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President Biden on Saturday again defended the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, arguing that the vast majority of Americans wanted to get out -- and asking "How else could you get out?"
Biden was speaking to reporters in Shanksville, Pa., on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and was asked about whether the withdrawal of the U.S. forces at the end of August marks a new phase for the country.
"If you had told anybody that we were going to spend $300 million a day for 20 years to try to unite the country after we got [Usama] bin Laden, after al Qaeda was wiped out there," he said. "Can al Qaeda come back? Yeh but guess what? It's already back in other places."
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The Taliban raised their flag over the Afghan presidential palace Saturday, a spokesman said, as the U.S. and the world marked the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The white banner, emblazoned with a Quranic verse, was hoisted by Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the prime minister of the Taliban interim government, in a low-key ceremony, said Ahmadullah Muttaqi, multimedia branch chief of the Taliban’s cultural commission.
The flag-raising marked the official start of the work of the new government, he said. The composition of the all-male, all-Taliban government was announced earlier this week and was met with disappointment by the international community which had hoped the Taliban would make good on an earlier promise of an inclusive lineup.
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