The terrorist group Islamic State has claimed that the Taliban in Afghanistan are fake jihadists and that the group is collaborating with the US.
IS has mocked the Taliban’s success in Afghanistan in its official weekly publication Al-Naba, alleging that the country was simply handed over to the Islamist rival by the withdrawal of American soldiers.
The US government is examining new locations, including in Europe, to relocate Afghans as it nears capacity in Qatar and scrambles to address the crush of people looking to flee Afghanistan, sources told CNN Friday.
The capacity issue is hampering evacuation efforts. No US flight has left Kabul in the last eight hours, CNN’s Clarissa Ward reported Friday.
Many of the US government evacuation flights had been traveling to Qatar, they have slowed down as the Gulf nation nears capacity for sheltering people, a Qatari source said.
The Qataris had agreed to take in 8,000 Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants and their family members, and they are getting close to reaching that number.
The US has evacuated not only individuals in this category, but others like P1/P2 visa applicants, which is complicating this process, according to a State Department official. The Qataris are now also taking in other evacuees – such as Americans who have final destinations – but they do not want to take in Afghans who are not already in the SIV process and have gone through some sort of security check.
The US is expected to relocate Afghans to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, multiple sources told CNN, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Friday that they “have agreed with the U.S. that Ramstein Air Base in particular can be used temporarily for the transit of people seeking protection from Afghanistan to the United States.”
Homeland Security personnel are expected to go to Germany to assist with processing of SIV applicants and Afghan allies, according to two DHS officials.
DHS staff were asked this week to volunteer for deployments to Germany and Qatar, according to the officials.
A Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN the department has deployed personnel from CBP, ICE, and TSA to Doha, Qatar, to conduct processing, screening, and vetting, and State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Thursday that “the department is sending consular staffing teams to Qatar and Kuwait to assist with the transit effort, and we’re preparing teams to surge to other processing locations as well.”
Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Uganda have all offered to temporarily host Afghan refugees.
