The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

sunday, november 22 , 2020. the washington post EZ RE K A 23

BY SUSANNAH GEORGE AND SHARIF HASSAN

KABUL — A barrage of rockets
struck a handful of neighbor-
hoods in the heart of the Afghan
capital Saturday morning, killing
eight people and wounding 31.
The rockets slammed into small
businesses, a school, residential
buildings and one embassy, send-
ing plumes of smoke and dust into
the air.
The rocket attack, the largest
for Kabul in years, comes as secu-
rity is deteriorating in the Afghan
capital, despite a peace deal
signed between the United States

and the Taliban and ongoing peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Doha. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in the Qatar capital on Saturday meeting with both negotiating teams. The Taliban issued a statement denying any involvement. The group in a tweet said it does “not allow indiscriminate strikes in populated areas.” Later, an Af- ghan faction linked to the Islamic State issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online.

Past rocket attacks in Kabul have targeted the presidential palace compound and other government buildings. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said 24 rockets were fired into downtown Kabul from two vehi- cles during Saturday’s morning rush hour. Most of the rockets hit residential areas in the capital, the ministry said, and all of the casualties were civilians. One rocket hit the Iranian Embassy, causing damage but no casualties, according to a tweet from the embassy. A video posted to social media showed the aftermath of the rock-

et that hit a school in Kabul. Crowds of students could be heard screaming, running down a narrow street away from the blast. “I heard boom, at least four, then I heard the neighbors screaming,” said Ahmad Farid Amiri, the owner of a bakery in downtown Kabul. One of the rockets hit his bakery’s delivery van, wounding three employees. “It was a horrific incident,” he said. Since the Taliban signed a peace deal with the United States in February, large-scale bombings claimed by the group no longer regularly shake Kabul. But the capital and other parts of Afghan-

istan have seen a sharp increase in other kinds of attacks by militants — both by the Taliban and the rival Islamic State — such as mass shootings and targeted killings. Taliban fighters waged offensives in southern Afghanistan in recent weeks, and in the north, the militants have repeatedly pushed closer to Kunduz’s provin- cial capital. And earlier this month, gunmen stormed Kabul University, killing at least 22. Re- sponsibility for that attack was claimed by the Islamic State. Saturday’s attack happened two days before a major donor conference for Afghanistan in Ge-

neva. Afghanistan remains heavi- ly dependent on foreign aid to provide citizens with basic ser- vices and keep the country’s security forces running. Donors are expected to pledge less aid this year amid uncertainty surround- ing peace talks. Since the Doha talks launched in September, the two sides have struggled to reach an agreement on the ground rules. The aim of the talks is to agree on a power- sharing government, but it’s un- clear what form that government would take. [email protected] [email protected]

Rockets strike downtown Kabul, leaving 8 people dead and 31 wounded

BY MISSY RYAN AND JOHN HUDSON

The Trump administration’s
plan to designate Yemen’s Houthi
rebel movement a foreign terror-
ist group, part of an 11th-hour
effort to pile pressure on Iran and
its allies, has left officials and aid
workers scrambling to prepare for
a move critics warn could have
catastrophic consequences.
Individuals familiar with the
discussion said officials are racing
ahead of an expected December
announcement to draft excep-
tions that would, in theory, make it
easier for U.S. and other aid agen-
cies to continue their work with-
out fear of breaking the law.
The administrative carve-outs
would be designed to allow aid
groups to continue operating in
Yemen — where a long-running
war has helped spawn a humani-
tarian crisis — without fear of
sanctions or prosecution for links
to a terrorist organization.
But aid groups are already ex-
pressing alarm that those mea-
sures will fail to avert a dramatic
reduction in lifesaving assistance
and commercial shipments of food
and other items to a nation teeter-
ing on the brink of famine. They
also fear the designation could sab-
otage hopes for a peace deal and
prolong a war in which hundreds
of thousands of people have died.
“If this is rushed through, we
might see trade and financial
flows dry up across Yemen, the
diplomatic process blown up and
the Houthis deciding they need to
repay the favor by increasing the

tempo of attacks into Saudi Arabia while turning to Iran for more support,” said Peter Salisbury, senior analyst for Yemen at the Inter- national Crisis Group. Preparations for the announcement are part of a push by the Trump administration to cement long-delayed policy goals before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, such as pulling troops out of Afghani- stan, even as President Trump challenges the results of the Nov. 3 election. In the administration’s waning days, officials have also intro- duced new measures intensifying the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran and its allies, despite criticism that Trump’s signature policy has failed to curtail Iran’s oil trade and uranium stockpile ex- pansion. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has tout- ed his record on Iran as one of his principal achievements, said the United States would slap new sanctions on Iran to “preserve the safety of the region and to protect Ameri- can lives.” The sanctions are expected to be rolled out on a weekly or even daily basis until President- elect Joe Biden takes office. The Trump administration has cast the war in Yemen as another reason for its Iran campaign, though officials say the Houthis, who are formally known as Ansar Allah and come from a Shiite sect from northern Yemen, initially re- ceived only minimal support from Iran, despite claims to the con- trary from Saudi officials. But Iranian military support

has increased steadily throughout the war. Nevertheless, the Houthis are seen as more independent than other proxy groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Some officials at the State De- partment’s Near East bureau, the U.S. Agency for International De- velopment and the Pentagon, fear- ing that a designation could compound suffering and derail a halt- ing peace process, have argued against the designation or sug- gested deferring a decision until after Jan. 20. But Pompeo in recent weeks capped the internal debate by re- questing new options and indicat- ing that he would move ahead with designating the Houthis as an official terrorist group, with a tentative deadline of Dec. 1. A State Department spokesman said the United States does not preview decisions about terrorist designations, and officials said the timeline might change. Individuals familiar with the discussions said Pompeo also indi- cated he planned to designate the group under a separate counterterrorism authority in tandem. The deliberations come at a particularly grim moment for Yemen, where fighting and eco- nomic collapse have contributed to record malnutrition and dis- ease. Earlier this year, the U.S. government suspended much of its aid to Yemen after the Houthis imposed restrictions that made it difficult to ensure the deliveries were going to intended recipients. On Friday, U.N. Secretary Gen- eral António Gutteres said that

Yemen was now in imminent dan- ger of “the worst famine the world has seen for decades.” “In the absence of immediate action, millions of lives may be lost,” he said. A U.S. designation would mark a triumph for Saudi Arabia, which leads a military coalition that has been battling the Houthis since

The Houthis have lobbed
rockets and missiles into the king-
dom that Saudi officials say have
killed civilians. Saudi jets, mean-
while, have repeatedly bombed ci-
vilians in Yemen.
The Trump administration has
forged a close relationship with
Saudi Arabia, despite its handling
of the Yemen war, the killing of
Washington Post contributing col-
umnist Jamal Khashoggi and oth-
er events.
Individuals familiar with the
discussion said officials are trying
to put together administrative ex-
ceptions that would allow U.S. and
other aid agencies to continue
their work.
Jason Blazakis, who for a dec-
ade served as director of the State
Department office that oversees
terrorist designations, said the
Treasury Department could issue
a “license” that would permit
Americans to conduct certain
kinds of activities with the
Houthis, such as aid delivery,
without facing sanctions. But he
said preparing those licenses
could take months, potentially
creating a life-threatening delay.
The State Department could
also issue waivers that allow U.S.
government agencies to continue

their work in Yemen, similar to provisions that have been made for aid delivery in militant-con- trolled areas of Syria. But experts said efforts to shel- ter humanitarian work from being disrupted by counterterrorism designations have failed in the past. After the Somali militant group al-Shabab was designated in 2008, nongovernmental groups and even USAID were unable to operate in large parts of the country because of the lack of a clear U.S. government statement about exemptions for such work — a fact that experts say contributed to the impact of a 2011 famine. Experts say the situation could be even more dire in Yemen because the Houthis function as the government in much of the country, including the capital, oversee- ing areas where 70 percent of Yem- enis live. “It’s one thing to designate a foreign terrorist organization that does not control any territory. It’s quite another thing when that terrorist organization basically runs a country,” said Adam M. Smith, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutch- er who served at the Treasury De- partment and White House during the Obama administration. Uncertainty about who could legally operate in Yemen after a terrorist designation would prob- ably have a much broader impact than intended, potentially dis- rupting commercial shipping amid concern among global banks and insurance and shipping com- panies about running afoul of U.S. law.

Smith said the power of U.S. sanctions and terrorism designations rests in part on ambiguity about who might be subject to penalties for possible violations, acting as a deterrent to engage- ment with those groups. On the flip side, such restrictions can also have an unintended effect on activities that the government wants to support, including aid work, if they are not paired with excep- tions and licenses. “The problem is that surgical targeting of bad actors can be- come unsurgical very quickly,” he said. Scott Paul, a humanitarian-policy official at Oxfam America, said that strong excep- tions for humanitarian work were essential. “These will mitigate some of the harm, but this decision will still ultimately cost lives in Yemen,” he said. Foreign Policy reported this past week that the administration planned to make the designation. The plan has already generated opposition on Capitol Hill. On Fri- day, a bipartisan group of lawmak- ers unveiled a new war-powers resolution that would force a vote on the U.S. participation in the war in Yemen. A draft of the resolution, ob- tained by The Washington Post, says the Saudi-led war has helped produce the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis.” [email protected] [email protected]

Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.

Plan to label Yemen rebels terrorists sparks fears of humanitarian disaster

THE WASHINGTON POST

DetailDetail

Lashkar Gah Kandahar

JalalabadJalalabad

Herat

Mazar-e Sharif

Kabul

whose forces fought the Taliban
until the military arrived. “If it
weren’t for the airstrikes, the
Taliban would not have fallen.”
Over the next two months, the
number of U.S. military person-
nel in Afghanistan will be cut in
half, from around 5,000 to 2,500,
acting defense secretary Christo-
pher C. Miller announced from
the Pentagon on Tuesday. That
level will mark the lowest number
of U.S. troops on the ground in the
conflict since 2002.
It was a move Miller’s pred-
ecessor warned against in a clas-
sified memo days before he was
fired. Former defense secretary
Mark T. Esper cited ongoing vio-
lence in Afghanistan and appre-
hension about undercutting ne-
gotiations between the Afghan
government and the Taliban
among his concerns about a more
rapid withdrawal.
On Saturday, Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo stopped in Doha
during a Middle East trip in an
effort to revive stalled talks be-
tween the Taliban and the Afghan
government. Pompeo reiterated
previous U.S. statements, calling
for “a significant reduction in
violence,” but no immediate an-
nouncements of progress fol-
lowed.
A U.S. defense official, speak-
ing on the condition of anonym-
ity because of the sensitivity of
the issue, said a small number of
U.S. service members are at Kan-
dahar Air Field as the drawdown
continues. Many of them are pre-
paring equipment to be sent out
of the country as the Jan. 15
drawdown deadline looms, he
said.
The U.S. military command in
Afghanistan did not comment on
airstrikes against the Taliban in
Helmand and Kandahar or on the
status of Kandahar Air Field.
Kandahar Air Field, which Af-
ghan officials say provided sup-
port for the airstrikes last week,
was once the largest NATO base
in Afghanistan, home to what
U.S. troops called the “board-
walk,” a collection of stores, res-
taurants and U.S. fast-food chains
such as KFC and TGI Fridays.
Gul Ahmad Kamin, 34, a mem-
ber of parliament from Kandahar,
said U.S. forces have been slowly
closing the airfield for months

taliban from A 1

and were just one week away from shuttering the base when Taliban fighters attacked nearby Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s provin- cial capital. A senior Afghan official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the mat- ter confirmed that U.S. forces have closed parts of the base. An Afghan employee of a private security company located near U.S. compounds on the base said he noticed movement to close the base about a month and a half ago, when several large shipping containers were handed over to the Afghan military, sur- veillance balloons were reeled in and deflated, and U.S. troops be- gan selling off their civilian vehi- cles to private contractors. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because his employer did not authorize him to speak to the media. Throughout the weeks-long Taliban offensive in southern Af- ghanistan, the massive cargo planes continued their runs to and from Kandahar Air Field, he said. For Afghan government forces stationed in and around Kanda-

har, the presence of U.S. troops is as much about symbolism as it is about the technical support they can provide, Kamin said. “It’s all about morale,” he said. “When U.S. forces are increasing, the morale is higher. When they are decreasing, the morale suf- fers.” In many parts of Afghanistan, as U.S. troops have drawn down, insecurity and higher levels of violence have followed. And al- though the public text of the

U.S.-Taliban deal does not call for a reduction in violence, U.S. officials have said Taliban attacks on cities and towns under Afghan government control are “not con- sistent” with the agreement. Abdul Nafi Pashtun, commander of Afghanistan’s 04 para- military unit, said the Taliban’s assault on Arghandab is another breach of the deal. “Their plan was to enter Kan- dahar city,” he said. Established primarily to conduct night raids

and other small, targeted opera- tions, Pashtun’s unit has been marshaled to fight on the front lines over the past seven months as Taliban attacks have intensi- fied and regular Afghan units with less U.S. support have proved unable to protect territory under government control. He and his commandos were called in to support other Afghan forces as they struggled to retake Arghandab earlier this month. The district, considered the gate- way to Kandahar city, sits on its northwestern edge along one of three main roads that connect the city to the rest of Afghanistan. Majahad, the national police commander in Arghandab, said, shaking his head, that an estimat- ed 3,500 Taliban fighters launched the first assault on his district and “had 500 motorbikes with them.” In three decades of military service, he said, he never saw a Taliban assault of such magni- tude. “There is no doubt they are stronger and more well equipped now,” he said. “And with this news [of faster U.S. troop withdrawals], the Taliban gets a great advan- tage.” Fatima, a widow in her 60s from Arghandab who like many Afghans goes by a single name, fled to Kandahar city more than two weeks ago with three small children. “There were bullets everywhere,” she said. “This war is the

worst I have seen since the Soviet time” in the 1980s. Saki Jana fled with her family from Panjawai district west of Kandahar, where intense clashes with the Taliban are ongoing. She also said the number of Taliban fighters was far greater in this attack than in previous assaults. “They were just everywhere, on every street. They only ran to hide when you could hear a heli- copter coming,” she said. Without the fear of U.S. air and drone strikes since the signing of the February deal, the Taliban can more easily move fighters and equipment around the country, Majahad said. And the militants can also gather openly in larger groups, as they did in the days and weeks leading up to the offensives in Helmand and Kan- dahar. “I don’t think we will ever be able to go back,” Fatima said. While Afghan government forces have retaken most of her district, she said she doesn’t trust that they won’t abandon their posts the next time the Taliban launch- es an assault. “The Americans are leaving, the Taliban are increasing their attacks, and we are stuck in between,” she said. “This country is just being destroyed.” [email protected]

Aziz Tassal in Kandahar and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.

Afghans fear less U.S. support as Taliban attacks intensify

Photos by Susannah George/The Washington Post A member of a bomb disposal unit prepares to move out to territory around Kandahar city recently retaken from Taliban control. Afghan forces are slowly taking back territory after militant attacks.

Women who fled clashes wait outside a government office in central Kandahar city hoping to collect aid for displaced civilians.

The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

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