WASHINGTON, DC- A new book that examines the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago could spell trouble for Joe Biden and his administration.
In the book Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought To the End, authors Jerry Dunleavy and James Hassan write that among the Afghan refugees permitted to enter the United States unvetted were at least 65 individuals identified as “national security risks,” the Daily Mail reported.
The hasty, and some say ill-planned withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of 13 American service members outside Karzai International Airport in Kabul in August 2021. Hundreds of Afghan nationals were also killed, and thousands of people were left behind for weeks, including an untold number of Americans.
The book also takes the Biden administration to task for blowing two chances to prevent the Kabul homicide bombing and putting the Taliban in charge of security outside the airport.
Dunleavy and Hassan allege that among those permitted to enter the country, multiple men had their DNA found on explosives and IEDs that were ultimately defused by American forces. Yet another was a prisoner liberated by the Taliban as they ran roughshod across Afghanistan en route to Kabul.
Despite warnings from some quarters that a hasty, complete withdrawal from Afghanistan would lead to the Taliban regaining power, Biden and his administration ordered the retreat. Like the videos of American troops abandoning refugees in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, videos taken during the withdrawal showed desperate Afghans clinging to US military aircraft, some falling to their deaths from hundreds of feet as flights left for the states.
Just after US forces left the country, the Taliban regained power.
An Afghan-American interpreter told the authors that he identified many Taliban fighters on the tarmac preparing to board flights bound for the United States claiming to seek refugee status.
While authorities vetted some refugees as they entered the U.S., a significant number were not vetted due to staff shortages attempting to deal with the estimated 82,000 evacuees sent to the U.S. According to a congressional memo issued in the aftermath of the evacuation, about 70 percent of evacuees were not American citizens, green card holders, or qualified under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program.
The book alleges that a number of the dangerous Afghan suspects took seats intended for U.S. citizens and allies. Many of those individuals remain in the terrorist-run country, although it is unknown if they have been able to avoid being captured or possibly killed by the Taliban.
The authors interviewed many service members, senior intelligence officials, and high-ranking members of allied governments.
They relate the story of an American interpreter, Gulum, who was at the Kabul airport. Gulum served under commanding generals until the final evacuation flight left Kabul. He told the authors that during the turmoil on the American side of Karzai International Airport, he saw two men with what he described as “trademark long hair and trimmed beards” whom he knew to be Taliban fighters.
Unlike most refugees attempting to flee the country, the two men were not accompanied by women or children. Gulum told the authors that he warned commanders and strongly advised that they be interviewed before they were allowed on an evacuation aircraft. They were removed from the airport because they could not provide the correct paperwork or visas. Gulum said that when they walked off, they met a Taliban commander who knew them by name.
The authors note that despite these two individuals being intercepted, many others escaped on evacuation flights undetected. In one case, a prisoner managed to make it into the U.S. despite his record being flagged when he arrived and was vetted in a so-called “safe haven” country.
The prisoner’s background information was shared with a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, but he was still permitted to continue to the United States. He was in the country for some three weeks before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could track him down and remove him from the country.
There are, however, a number who made it into the U.S. and are likely still here, the book says.
“As of February 2022, the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) had identified at least fifty Afghan military-age male evacuees—none of whom was an SIV applicant—who had been flagged as significant security risks by the Defense Department,” one passage in the book reads.
Just six months later, however, that number had increased to 65.
For those whose fingerprints had been found on IEDs and explosives defused by US troops, none were flagged during the initial screening process because the administration had only compared evacuee profiles against U.S. CBP’s database.
However, those databases offered little helpful information since they only contained records of individuals stopped at American borders. Men who had lived in Afghanistan their entire lives were omitted.
Despite being flagged as national security threats, the US government does not have the means to track them down. For unknown reasons, the CBP did not collect fingerprints from an estimated 1,300 evacuees who entered the United States. Moreover, 417 evacuees’ first names were entered as “unknown,” and the last names of an additional 242 were likewise missing.
Over 11,000 evacuees had their dates of birth listed as January 1. The names and DOBs only apply to those who went through the vetting process. Many, as mentioned, did not.
Yet despite that, the State Department in September 2022 relaxed their rules and allowed more Afghan applicants into the country—even if they had been affiliated with the Taliban. The authors wrote that the rules for acceptance into the United States were extremely lax.
A report compiled by the Department of Homeland Security identified what the authors described as a glaring shortfall in the vetting of Afghan “refugees,” noting that “untold” numbers of people entered the U.S. without undergoing any checks.
In the book Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought To the End, authors Jerry Dunleavy and James Hassan write that among the Afghan refugees permitted to enter the United States unvetted were at least 65 individuals identified as “national security risks,” the Daily Mail reported.
The hasty, and some say ill-planned withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of 13 American service members outside Karzai International Airport in Kabul in August 2021. Hundreds of Afghan nationals were also killed, and thousands of people were left behind for weeks, including an untold number of Americans.
The book also takes the Biden administration to task for blowing two chances to prevent the Kabul homicide bombing and putting the Taliban in charge of security outside the airport.
Dunleavy and Hassan allege that among those permitted to enter the country, multiple men had their DNA found on explosives and IEDs that were ultimately defused by American forces. Yet another was a prisoner liberated by the Taliban as they ran roughshod across Afghanistan en route to Kabul.
Despite warnings from some quarters that a hasty, complete withdrawal from Afghanistan would lead to the Taliban regaining power, Biden and his administration ordered the retreat. Like the videos of American troops abandoning refugees in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, videos taken during the withdrawal showed desperate Afghans clinging to US military aircraft, some falling to their deaths from hundreds of feet as flights left for the states.
Just after US forces left the country, the Taliban regained power.
An Afghan-American interpreter told the authors that he identified many Taliban fighters on the tarmac preparing to board flights bound for the United States claiming to seek refugee status.
While authorities vetted some refugees as they entered the U.S., a significant number were not vetted due to staff shortages attempting to deal with the estimated 82,000 evacuees sent to the U.S. According to a congressional memo issued in the aftermath of the evacuation, about 70 percent of evacuees were not American citizens, green card holders, or qualified under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program.
The book alleges that a number of the dangerous Afghan suspects took seats intended for U.S. citizens and allies. Many of those individuals remain in the terrorist-run country, although it is unknown if they have been able to avoid being captured or possibly killed by the Taliban.
The authors interviewed many service members, senior intelligence officials, and high-ranking members of allied governments.
They relate the story of an American interpreter, Gulum, who was at the Kabul airport. Gulum served under commanding generals until the final evacuation flight left Kabul. He told the authors that during the turmoil on the American side of Karzai International Airport, he saw two men with what he described as “trademark long hair and trimmed beards” whom he knew to be Taliban fighters.
Unlike most refugees attempting to flee the country, the two men were not accompanied by women or children. Gulum told the authors that he warned commanders and strongly advised that they be interviewed before they were allowed on an evacuation aircraft. They were removed from the airport because they could not provide the correct paperwork or visas. Gulum said that when they walked off, they met a Taliban commander who knew them by name.
The authors note that despite these two individuals being intercepted, many others escaped on evacuation flights undetected. In one case, a prisoner managed to make it into the U.S. despite his record being flagged when he arrived and was vetted in a so-called “safe haven” country.
The prisoner’s background information was shared with a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, but he was still permitted to continue to the United States. He was in the country for some three weeks before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could track him down and remove him from the country.
There are, however, a number who made it into the U.S. and are likely still here, the book says.
“As of February 2022, the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) had identified at least fifty Afghan military-age male evacuees—none of whom was an SIV applicant—who had been flagged as significant security risks by the Defense Department,” one passage in the book reads.
Just six months later, however, that number had increased to 65.
For those whose fingerprints had been found on IEDs and explosives defused by US troops, none were flagged during the initial screening process because the administration had only compared evacuee profiles against U.S. CBP’s database.
However, those databases offered little helpful information since they only contained records of individuals stopped at American borders. Men who had lived in Afghanistan their entire lives were omitted.
Despite being flagged as national security threats, the US government does not have the means to track them down. For unknown reasons, the CBP did not collect fingerprints from an estimated 1,300 evacuees who entered the United States. Moreover, 417 evacuees’ first names were entered as “unknown,” and the last names of an additional 242 were likewise missing.
Over 11,000 evacuees had their dates of birth listed as January 1. The names and DOBs only apply to those who went through the vetting process. Many, as mentioned, did not.
Yet despite that, the State Department in September 2022 relaxed their rules and allowed more Afghan applicants into the country—even if they had been affiliated with the Taliban. The authors wrote that the rules for acceptance into the United States were extremely lax.
A report compiled by the Department of Homeland Security identified what the authors described as a glaring shortfall in the vetting of Afghan “refugees,” noting that “untold” numbers of people entered the U.S. without undergoing any checks.
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