US - Afghanistan relations

Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan

14 Dec 2021 4 3

Jen Psaki

Inserted 2 years ago

“There are a number of reasons why these reserves remain inaccessible. First and foremost, the status of the funds is the subject of ongoing litigation, brought by certain victims of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks to hold judgments against the Taliban. These legal proceedings cannot be disregarded and have led to the temporary suspension of any movement of the funds through at least the end of the year and quite possibly longer. Second, the United States continues to face difficult fundamental questions about how it might be able to make reserve funds available to directly benefit the people of Afghanistan while ensuring that the funds do not benefit the Taliban. And, obviously, our objective as one of the world's biggest providers of humanitarian assistance is to get that assistance directly to the people. It is difficult to determine how that would not go through - would not benefit the Taliban as it relates to these funds. Third, the Taliban remain sanctioned by the United States as a specially designated global terrorist group, and a number of its officials are subject to the UN - UNSCR's 1988 sanctions regime. This raises immediate red flags for many states' central banks and the financial community more generally when considering any transactions.”

Whitehouse

White House spokeswoman

13 Dec 2021 7 3

Amir Khan Muttaqi

Inserted 2 years ago

“The assets should be freed immediately. The Americans don't have any military front with us now. What is the reason for freezing the assets? The assets don't belong to the Mujahideen (Islamic Emirate) but to the people of Afghanistan. The US froze our assets and then told us that it will provide us humanitarian aid. What does it mean?”

Foreign Minister of Afghanistan in the Taliban's government

21 Nov 2021 5 4

Zabihullah Mujahid

Inserted 2 years ago

“Our message to America is, if unrecognition continues, Afghan problems continue, it is the problem of the region and could turn into a problem for the world. The reason the Taliban and the United States went to war last time was also because the two did not have formal diplomatic ties. Those issues which caused the war, they could have been solved through negotiation, they could have been solved through political compromise too.”

Taliban spokesman

30 Oct 2021 4 3

Zalmay Khalilzad

Inserted 2 years ago

“If the Taliban don't move toward more inclusiveness, respecting the rights of the Afghan people, and then honoring their commitment to us on terrorism; there will be no move towards normalcy and there shouldn't be. There should be no release of funds. So their economy could collapse and in that collapse a new civil war could start.”

Former US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation

25 Oct 2021 3 6

Natasha Ghoneim

Inserted 2 years ago

“The Americans aren't offering any details as the talks conclude, but the Afghan delegation has said the two-day talks were positive. They hope it paves the way for recognition of the Afghan government - not only by the United States, but the international community.”

Al Jazeera’s journalist

10 Oct 2021 5 3

Kenneth McKenzie

Inserted 2 years ago

“The signing of the Doha agreement had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military - psychological more than anything else, but we set a date - certain for when we were going to leave and when they could expect all assistance to end.”

Chief of U.S. Central Command

29 Sep 2021 3 3

Lloyd Austin

Inserted 2 years ago

“We need to consider some uncomfortable truths that we didn't fully comprehend.”

US Secretary of Defense

28 Sep 2021 1 3

Mark Milley

Inserted 2 years ago

“It is clear and obvious that the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted with the Taliban now in power in Kabul. My analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal, without meeting specific and necessary conditions, risks losing the substantial gains made in Afghanistan, damaging US worldwide credibility and could precipitate a general collapse of the NSF and the Afghan government, resulting in a complete Taliban takeover, or general civil war.”

US Army general and the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

28 Sep 2021 5 4

Kenneth McKenzie

Inserted 2 years ago

“Having thoroughly reviewed the findings of the investigation and the supporting analysis by interagency partners, I am now convinced that as many as 10 civilians, including up to seven children, were tragically killed in that strike. It was a mistake, and I offer my sincere apology. As a combatant commander, I am fully responsible for this strike and this tragic outcome... I was confident that the strike had averted an imminent threat to our forces at the airport. Based upon that assessment, I and other leaders in the Department [of Defense] repeatedly asserted the validity of this strike. I'm here today to set the record straight and acknowledge our mistakes.”

Chief of U.S. Central Command

17 Sep 2021 4 2

David Cohen

Inserted 2 years ago

“We are already beginning to see some of the indications of some potential movement of Al Qaida to Afghanistan, but its early days, and we will obviously keep a very close eye on that.”

Deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency

15 Sep 2021 1 3

Antony Blinken

Inserted 2 years ago

“The Taliban has committed to prevent terrorist groups using Afghanistan as a base for external operations that could threaten the United States and our allies, including Al Qaida and ISIS-K. We will hold them accountable for that. That does not mean that we will rely on it, we will maintain a visual effort to monitor threats, robust counterterrorism capabilities in the region to neutralize those threats, if necessary.”

U.S. Secretary of State

15 Sep 2021 6 3

Scott Berrier

Inserted 2 years ago

“The current assessment probably conservatively is one to two years for Al Qaeda to build some capability to at least threaten the homeland. We're thinking about ways to gain access back into Afghanistan with all kinds of sources. We have to be careful to balance these very scarce resources with this pivot to China, and to Russia.”

Nytimes

Director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency

14 Sep 2021 5 4

Clive Stafford Smith

Inserted 2 years ago

“Instead, while we did at least insist on the rights of women, we imported a sense of imperial racism that was redolent of the First Anglo-Afghan War. We rendered life prohibitively expensive without enhancing the wealth of the people (when I wanted to set up a branch of our NGO, it would have cost four times as much in Kabul as it would in Islamabad). And we set up a government that was so legendarily venal and corrupt that the US military referred to it as the V I C E - 'Vertically Integrated Criminal Entity'. Is it surprising that Afghans did not want to indulge in yet another civil war to preserve what we had offered them?”

Human rights lawyer and director of the UK charity 3DC, 3dc.org.uk

31 Aug 2021 6 2

Joe Biden

Inserted 2 years ago

“I was not going to extend this forever war. And I was not going to extend a forever exit. To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan, I ask, 'What is the vital national interest?' I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan. When I hear that we could've, should've continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan at low risk to our service members, at low cost, I don't think enough people understand how much we've asked of the 1% of this country to put that uniform on.”

Apnews

President of the United States

31 Aug 2021 1 2

Kenneth McKenzie

Inserted 2 years ago

“There's a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure. We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out. But I think if we'd stayed another 10 days, we wouldn't have gotten everybody out.”

31 Aug 2021 1 2

Zabihullah Mujahid

Inserted 2 years ago

“It is a historical day and a historical moment. We are proud of these moments, that we liberated our country from a great power.”

Taliban spokesman

31 Aug 2021 3 3

Philip Mudd

Inserted 2 years ago

“It is really a question of timescale. We have capabilities that have been honed over 20 years. My friends will hunt these people down. It might take a while, and there may not be a strike in 30 days, but in five years whoever did this will find themselves at the wrong end of a strike. Clearly access is going to be a problem but it is not an impossible job. It’s not correct that we have no one in country. We can develop new relationships in Afghanistan and over one or two years someone among the people we are looking for is going to make a mistake. I don’t think the president is overpromising.”

Theguardian

Former deputy director of the counterterrorist centre at the CIA

27 Aug 2021 1 2

David Sedney

Inserted 2 years ago

“No one who is serious about counterterrorism believes it [that counterterrorism operations could be conducted from outside Afghanistan]. The United States is going to pay a terrible price for this at some point in the future. Another 9/11.”