THURSDAy, MARCH 5 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST eZ su A
BY SUSANNAH GEORGEkabul — The United States con-
ducted an airstrike against Tali-
ban fighters in southern Afghani-
stan on Wednesday just hours af-
ter President Trump spoke by
phone to one of the group’s senior
leaders.
Trump spoke to Ta liban politi-
cal l eader Abdul G hani B aradar o n
Tuesday, j ust days a fter the signing
of a U.S.-Taliban peace deal.
Trump said the two “had a good
conversation” and agreed on “no
violence, we don’t want violence.”
But violence across Afghani-
stan has spiked in recent days
following a Ta liban announce-
ment Monday that it had resumed
offensive operations against Af-
ghan security forces.
A drop i n violence was a critical
precondition to the deal’s signing,
but the agreement did not specify
violence levels moving forward.
After the signing, U.S. officials
have repeatedly said, their forces
reserve the right to defend them-
selves and their allies.
The U.S. strike Wednesday was
carried out after Ta liban fighters
attacked an Afghan security force
outpost in Helmand province, ac-
cording to Col. Sonny Leggett, the
U.S. m ilitary spokesman i n Kabul.
“This was a defensive strike to
disrupt the attack. This was our
1st strike against the Ta liban in
11 days,” Leggett said in a state-ment on Twitter.
Over 2 4 hours, the T aliban
c onducted 30 attacks that killed
four civilians and 11 security force
members and wounded 18 others,said Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesman
for Afghanistan’s Interior Minis-
try.
In one attack in Kunduz prov-
ince, at least eight soldiers werekilled overnight, l ocal lawmaker
Ghulam Rabbani s aid Wednesday.
The attack started around mid-
night and lasted more than two
hours, and “the sound of rocketfire and light weapons could be
heard throughout [Kunduz] city,”
he said.
Following the U.S. airstrike
Wednesday, Taliban spokesman
Suhail Shaheen said the group “is
committed to act on all parts o f the
deal one by one to control the
intensity of war.” He added: “The
opposite side should also remove
the hurdles in the deal to pave the
way for complete peace.”
Shaheen did not respond to re-
quests to c larify what h e meant by
“hurdles in the deal.”
Leggett said Taliban leadership
had promised the international
community it would “reduce vio-
lence a nd not i ncrease a ttacks.” H e
called on the group to “stop need-
less attacks and uphold t heir com-
mitments. As we have demon-
strated, we will defend our part-
ners when r equired.”
The Afghan government and
Ta liban leaders are also locked in a
disagreement about a controver-
sial prisoner exchange that could
determine the f uture of peace talks.
The U.S.-Taliban peace deal
called for the prisoner exchange to
take place before intra-Afghan
talks take place next Tuesday. But
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani h as
ruled that out. The Ta liban re-
sponded that it would not enter
into talks with the Afghan govern-
ment without a prisoner swap first.
[email protected]sharif Hassan in Kabul and Haq
Nawaz Khan in peshawar, pakistan,
contributed to this report.U.S. strikes Taliban hours after Trump call with militant
Group had resumed
attacks on Afghan forces
despite peace dealAgeNCe FrANCe-presse/geTTy imAges
Afghan forces stand guard after a Taliban attack near an Afghan army outpost in Kunduz province. Over 24 hours, the Taliban conducted
30 attacks across the country, a government spokesman said.M ichael Kellogg, who repre-
sents Saudi Arabia, said Malo-
ney’s allegations are “based on
hearsay within hearsay.”
In court papers, a Saudi gov-
ernment minister said “[no] Sau-
di Arabian government official,
employee, agent, or anyone acting
on Saudi Arabia’s behalf has at-
tempted to threaten any potential
witness or any witness’s family
members in this proceeding.”
Charles Wolf, a plaintiff whose
wife was killed in the World Trade
Center attack, said the allegations
of witness intimidation are shock-
ing and credible.
“If anything, the Saudi govern-
ment is keeping [its lawyers] in
the dark,” he said.
[email protected]with personal knowledge rele-
vant to the 9/11 terror litigation
who have expressed to me their
fears of testifying against the Sau-
di government.”
One witness “had been ap-
proached in person and directly
threatened by Saudi government
officials” or their employees or
agents, Maloney wrote, adding
that the person or their family
were told they could be murdered.
Another witness said they be-
lieved they were stalked by “Saudi
agents” after their name ap-
peared in a court document and
that the person feared they could
be made to “disappear,” the attor-
ney wrote.
Maloney said the incidents
amounted to witness tampering.nesses should be turned over to
the Saudis’ legal team. The plain-
tiffs argued it was premature to
turn over such information be-
cause it’s s till unclear which of the
potential witnesses will be de-
posed and testify.
Attorney Andrew Maloney, a
former federal prosecutor in the
Southern District of New York,
where the 9/11 case is pending,
laid out in a previous court filing
what he described as a pattern of
harassment and threats against
witnesses. He said the targeted
individuals had reported the inci-
dents to police or planned to do
so.
Maloney wrote in a Feb. 21
declaration that he has “spoken
with several third party w itnessesabout providing information on
Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New
York and Washington.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah
Netburn said she was “troubled
by the allegations” that witnesses
were threatened and asked for a
submission from the plaintiffs’
lawyers “documenting in greater
detail the information that you
have” by March 18. Netburn gave
the attorneys permission to re-
dact the names of the witnesses.
The submission will initially be
filed under seal and will not be
available to the Saudi govern-
ment’s l egal team, the judge ruled.
The issue of safety came up
amid legal jousting over whether
the identities of potential wit-nesses, pointing to the murder of
journalist Jamal Khashoggi as an
example of the kind of danger
faced by those who speak out
against Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi,
a contributing Washington Post
columnist and outspoken critic of
the Saudi crown prince, had been
interviewed by an investigator for
the plaintiffs in 2017.
Lawyers for those suing Saudi
Arabia — including survivors of
the attacks and victims’ r elatives
— said at an emergency court
hearing Wednesday that the Octo-
ber 2018 killing of Khashoggi at
the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul
has heightened their concern for
four potential witnesses. Those
people, the lawyers said, have
been in talks with the familiesBY SHAYNA JACOBSnew york — A federal judge has
ordered lawyers for 9/11 families
suing Saudi Arabia to detail
threats allegedly made against
witnesses they may depose as part
of their effort to prove the king-
dom was involved in the 2001
terrorist attacks.
The victims’ attorneys have ar-
gued they need to protect for now
the identities of potential wit-
Judge demands details of alleged threats in 9/11 lawsuit against Saudi Arabia
Lawyers for victims’
families accuse kingdom
of witness intimidationHe has further needled Euro-
pean leaders with language that
echoes the appeals of leftists and
migrant activists who have long
decried what they see as the
E.U.’s indifference to human suf-
fering.
At the same time, Von derLeyen has alluded to the idea
that Turkey is using migrants as
a bargaining chip, saying, “Peo-
ple are not just a means to reach
a goal.”
Since Turkey opened its bor-
ders, a boy died when a small
refugee boat capsized near the
Greek island of Lesbos.
The tensions over incoming
migrants coincide with rising
public anxieties in Europe over
the coronavirus and its spread —
often in places without any clear
connection to the original out-
break in China or its secondary
clusters in Iran and northern
Italy.
Right-wing nationalists have
seized on the virus as an excuse
to pursue hard-line anti-immi-
grant policies. The government
of Hungarian Prime Minister
Viktor Orban announced that it
“has indefinitely suspended ac-
cess to border transit areas for
asylum seekers” due to potential
risks from the virus.
“We observe a certain link
between coronavirus and illegal
migrants,” said Gyorgy Bakondi,
a national security adviser to
Orban. He did not explain the
nature of that link.
On Wednesday, Orban an-
nounced that Hungary had con-
firmed its first two cases of
coronavirus. Both were students
from Iran.
[email protected]stem the flow of migrants and to
prevent the reemergence of a
crisis that five years ago under-
mined the political authority of
the multistate bloc and spurred
the growth of right-wing and
nativist movements across the
continent.
In March 2016, Brussels
signed a deal with Ankara that
sought to limit the number of
migrants coming into Greece via
Turkey — many from war-torn
Syria — in exchange for billions
of euros in additional aid.
But with the hope of pressur-
ing Europe to get help in Syria,
and after the death in Idlib of 33
Turkish soldiers, Turkey has let
migrants flow west.
Erdogan has claimed that Tur-
key faces a spiraling number of
people fleeing the Idlib offensive
and does not have the capacity to
withstand a second wave of refu-
gees.BY JAMES MCAULEYThe European Union has an-
nounced plans to reinforce secu-
rity at the Greek border to stop a
new wave of migrants — and
warned Turkey not to use the
migrants as political pawns. An-
kara on Wednesday countered
that the Europeans were violat-
ing their professed moral values.
Frontex, the E.U.’s border and
coast guard agency, said it is
working with Greece to deploy a
rapid intervention team to
Greece’s land and sea borders.
“Our first priority is making
sure that order is maintained at
the Greek external border, which
is also a European border,” Euro-
pean Commission President Ur-
sula von der Leyen said in Greece
on Tuesday, thanking the coun-
try for being Europe’s “shield.”
“I also want to express my
compassion for the m igrants that
have been lured through false
promises into this desperate sit-
uation,” she added.
But Turkish President Recep
Ta yyip Erdogan said Wednesday
that if Europe were serious
about resolving the migration
problem that has festered since
2015, it would join Ankara in
thwarting the offensive led by
Russian-backed forces in Syria’s
Idlib.
“A ll other approaches outside
of this will move the European
Union, which is already wallow-
ing in the mire of xenophobia
and racism, a little further from
its own values,” he said.
Turkish officials claimed a mi-
grant was killed in a clash with
Greek authorities on Wednesday.
The Greek government categori-
cally denied the charge, accusing
Turkey of dispersing “fake news
targeted against Greece.”
Te nsions between the E.U. and
Turkey have been high in recent
days since Ankara announced it
would let migrants make their
way to the Greek border unim-
peded.
Europe has relied on Turkey to
As E.U. bolsters security at Greek border, d ispute with Turkey rises anew
BuleNT KiliC/AgeNCe FrANCe-presse/geTTy imAges
ABOVE: Migrants try to pass through fencing between Turkey and Greece. The European Union has relied on Turkey to stem the flow, but
Turkey wants Europe’s help with Syria and has said it would let migrants freely head to Greece. BELOW: Greek soldiers patrol.Tensions have been high
since Ankara announced
it won’t impede migrantsgiANNis pApANiKos/AssoCiATed press“Our first priority is
making sure that order
is maintained at the
Greek external border,
which is also a
European b order.”
European Commission President
Ursula von der Leyen