Phoenix Air mystery flight flies from Florida to Guatanamo to D.C.

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Sharp eyed monitors on flight tracking sites noticed something unusual on Monday, a Gulfstream IV (N48GL) operated by Phoenix Air Group Inc (a company that often does contract work for the U.S. government, C.I.A and the U.S. military) was noted taking off from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba with it's ultimate destination Washington D.C. 

In light of the end of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and the aircraft in question (N48GL possibly using a cover hex-code of A-17FBA) also having just returned from Afghanistan, one can't help but wonder what (or more to the point) who was on that aircraft (most likely) flown from Afghanistan to Guantanamo to DC? 

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It's no secret that over the past 20 years, Guantánamo has held nearly 800 people, most suspected of plotting against the U.S. with some of them connected directly to the attack on 9-11.  

It's thought that now only 39 men are currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, while almost three-quarters of them have never been criminally charged, they are instead held as enemy combatants.  They're known as  the "forever prisoners" and they've  been detained (well) indefinitely with some of them  having been incarcerated there for just short of twenty years. 

So with the end of the war on terror in Afghanistan now over, what happens next? 

"We have been and remain at war with al-Qaida," said DOJ attorney Stephen M. Elliott at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in a case involving a former Afghan militia member who has been held at Guantánamo since 2007 but that was in May. 

Since President Biden took office, at least six Guantánamo detainees have been cleared for transfer to other countries with one being repatriated to Morocco in July of this year 

The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan has raised fears that if additional Guantánamo prisoners are released, they could end up joining the militant group or engaging in anti-American activities overseas.

Afghanistan's Taliban has appointed former Guantanamo detainee mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir as acting defense minister, Qatari based Al Jazeera news channel reported, citing a source in the Islamist movement.

U.S. terrorism worries (fueled by photos of a Taliban leader, later identified as a former Guantánamo detainee) celebrating the capture of Kabul at the Afghan presidential palace and another Taliban leader who reportedly helped orchestrate the Taliban's comeback is a past Guantánamo inmate who was swapped in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, the captured U.S. Army soldier.

Could it be that the flight had to do with the trial of an  Indonesian man (held in Guantanamo for 18 years) who  was due to go on trial on Monday?  

Encep Nurjaman, also known as Hambali and Riduan bin Isomudin, was set to face a military commission on charges of war crimes, including murder, “terrorism” and conspiracy. after his arrest in connection with a series of attacks and the deadly nightclub and hotel bombings in Indonesia in the early 2000s, but it was thought that trial was to take place at Guantanamo. 

Two other Malaysian men accused of being accomplices will also stand trial alongside him, namely Mohammed Nazir bin Lep and Mohammed Farik bin Amin.

But common sense tells us since Guantanamo is a Navy base (and there are plenty of Navy aircraft to shuttle lawyers and such back and fourth) so why the expensive charter of a Phoenix Air Group Gulfstream who barely had time to cool it's engines from a run into Afghanistan before a quick trip to GITMO and then to D.C.? 

Speculation ranges from a prisoner exchange in the works or possibly a last minute grab of a Taliban leader to insure the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan (including protection for  some U.S. citizens still in country) can continue to proceed without interference.

A U.S. drone strike early last Saturday killed an "ISIS-K" militant in the group blamed for the deadly suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, U.S. officials said. 

ISIS-K formed in late 2014, recruiting founding members that included "disaffected" militants who left the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban, said Seth Jones, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an interview with NPR's All Things Considered.

ISIS-K, which counts the Taliban and al-Qaida as its competitors, has increasingly conducted brutal and high-profile attacks, Jones said, in pursuit of its end goal to establish "an Islamic Emirate."

According to the "Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America."

"The United States is committed to start immediately to work with all relevant sides on a plan to expeditiously release combat and political prisoners as a confidence building measure with the coordination and approval of all relevant sides."

It continues in the next paragraph with:  "The relevant sides have the goal of releasing all the remaining prisoners over the course of the subsequent three months. The United States commits to completing this goal. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban commits that its released prisoners will be committed to the responsibilities mentioned in this agreement so that they will not pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies." 

Furthermore: "In conjunction with the announcement of this agreement, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will take the following steps to prevent any group or individual, including al-Qa’ida, from using the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies: 1. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qa’ida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies. 2. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will send a clear message that those who pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies have no place in Afghanistan, and will instruct members of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban not to cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies. 3. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will prevent any group or individual in Afghanistan from threatening the security of the United States and its allies, and will prevent them from recruiting, training, and fundraising and will not host them in accordance with the commitments in this agreement. 4. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban is committed to deal with those seeking asylum or residence in Afghanistan according to international migration law and the commitments of this agreement, so that such persons do not pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies. 5. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will not provide visas, passports, travel permits, or other legal documents to those who pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies to enter Afghanistan."

In return:

"The United States and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban seek positive relations with each other and expect that the relations between the United States and the new post-settlement Afghan Islamic government as determined by the intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations will be positive and The  United States will seek economic cooperation for reconstruction with the new post-settlement Afghan Islamic government as determined by the intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations, and will not intervene in its internal affairs."

Whether the Taliban will  honor this agreement (sanctioned by the U.N.) remains to be seen. 

Maybe whomever was on that flight is a bargaining chip. Stay tuned. 

-Steve Douglass

U.S. destroys helicopters, military equipment in wake of Afghanistan exodus ...

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) — The twisted remains of several all-terrain vehicles leaned precariously inside Baba Mir’s sprawling scrap yard, alongside smashed shards that were once generators, tank tracks that have been dismantled into chunks of metal, and mountains of tents reduced to sliced up fabric.

It’s all U.S. military equipment. The Americans dismantled  their portion of nearby Bagram Air Base, their largest  outpost in Afghanistan, and anything that is not being taken home or given to the Afghan military is being destroyed as completely as possible, even small outposts were dismantled or reduced to rubble.

They do so as a security measure, to ensure equipment doesn’t fall into the hands of militants. But Mir and the dozens of other scrap sellers around Bagram see it as an infuriating waste.

“What they are doing is a betrayal of Afghans. They should leave,” he said. “Like they have destroyed this vehicle, they have destroyed us.”

As the last few thousand U.S. and NATO troops head out the door, ending their own 20-year war in Afghanistan, they are involved in a massive logistical undertaking, packing up bases around the country. They leave behind a population where many are frustrated and angry. The Afghans feel abandoned to a legacy they blame at least in part on the Americans — a deeply corrupt U.S.-backed government and growing instability that could burst into brutal new phase of civil war.

The bitterness of the scrapyard owners is only a small part of that, and it’s based somewhat on self-interest: They feel they they could have profited more from selling intact equipment.

It’s been a common theme for the past two traumatic and destructive decades in which actions that the U.S. touted as necessary or beneficial only disillusioned Afghans who felt the repercussions.

At Bagram, northwest of the capital of Kabul, and other bases, U.S. forces are taking stock of equipment to be returned to America. Tens of thousands of metal containers, about 20 feet long, are being shipped out on C-17 cargo planes or by road through Pakistan and Central Asia. As of last week, 60 C-17s packed with equipment already had left Afghanistan.

Officials are being secretive about what stays and what goes. Most of what is being shipped home is sensitive equipment never intended to be left behind, according to U.S. and Western officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk freely about departing troops.

Other equipment, including helicopters, military vehicles, weapons and ammunition, will be handed over to Afghanistan’s National Defense and Security Forces. Some bases will be given to them as well. One of those most recently handed over was the New Antonik base in Helmand province, where Taliban are said to control roughly 80% of the rural area.


Destined for the scrap heap are equipment and vehicles that can neither be repaired nor transferred to Afghanistan’s security forces because of poor condition.

So far about 1,300 pieces of equipment have been destroyed, said a U.S. military statement. There will be more before the final deadline for departure on Sept. 11, said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The practice is not new. The same was done in 2014, when thousands of troops withdrew as the U.S. and NATO handed Afghanistan’s security over to Afghans. More than 387 million pounds (176 million kilograms) of scrap from destroyed equipment and vehicles was sold to Afghans for $46.5 million, a spokeswoman for the military’s Defense Logistics Agency in Virginia said at the time.

Last month, around the time President Joe Biden announced that America was ending its “forever war,” Mir paid nearly $40,000 for a container packed with 70 tons of trashed equipment.

He’ll make money, he told The Associated Press, but it will be a fraction of what he could have made if they’d been left intact, even if they weren’t in working condition.

The vehicle parts would have been sold to the legions of auto repair shops across Afghanistan, he said. That can’t happen now. They’ve been reduced to mangled pieces of metal that Mir sells for a few thousand Afghanis.

Sadat, another junk dealer in Bagram who gave only one name, says other scrap yards around the country are crammed with ruined U.S. equipment.

“They left us nothing,” he said. “They don’t trust us. They have destroyed our country. They are giving us only destruction.”

The Western official familiar with the packing up process said U.S. forces face a dilemma: Hand off largely defunct but intact equipment and risk having it fall into hands of enemy forces, or trash them and anger Afghans.

To make his point, he recounted a story: Not so long ago, U.S. forces discovered two Humvees that had found their way into enemy hands. They had been refitted and packed with explosives. U.S. troops destroyed the vehicles, and the incident reinforced a policy of trashing equipment.

LINK: Video shows disabled American helicopters left behind

But Afghan scrap yard owners and dozens of others who sifted through the junk in the yards wondered what dangers could have been posed by a treadmill that was torn apart, the long lengths of fire hose that were cut to pieces, or the bags once used to create large sand-barrier walls with their powerful mesh fabric now sliced and useless.

Dozens of tents cut and sliced sat in piles on the floor. Nearby were fuel bags and gutted generators, tank tracks and gnarled metal that looked like the undercarriage of a vehicle.

“They destroyed our country and now they are giving us their garbage,” said gray-bearded Hajji Gul, another junk dealer. “What are we to do with this?”


Associated Press writer Lolita Baldor in Washington contributed.


RELATED:

"Troops likely used thermate grenades, which burn at temperatures of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, to destroy key components of the equipment," USA Today reports, citing a Pentagon official, while "some pieces of equipment were likely blown up" at the airport. "McKenzie stressed that the equipment would be of no use in combat," USA Today notes, "but they will likely be display by the Taliban as trophies of their decades-long fight to retake their country."

"The U.S. military removed planes, heavy weapons, and sophisticated military equipment as it began winding down its operations in Afghanistan in the spring," NPR reports. "But it couldn't take home 20 years of accumulated hardware and instead left much of it to the Afghan military" — and after the Afghan military collapsed over the summer, "the Taliban wasted no time in gloating over their new war booty," including billions of dollars in captured "aircraft, trucks, Humvees, artillery guns, and night-vision goggles."

The U.S.-supplied "rifles, plate carrier vests, and other infantry gear provide legitimate tactical value to the group's foot soldiers," The Washington Post reports, but "some of the captured equipment, like helicopters and attack planes, may be more useful for propaganda imagery than for everyday use." U.S. contractors maintained the Black Hawk helicopters, C-130 transport planes, and other aircraft that require expensive and hard-to-find parts, and the Taliban lacks the technical expertise to keep them airborne, even if they find pilots.

The Taliban were "significantly helpful" in enabling the U.S. and allied forces to airlift 122,000 people out of Kabul's airport in two weeks, McKenzie said, but they will have a hard time securing Kabul. When the Taliban swept through Afghanistan, freeing its fighters from prisons, it also swelled the ranks of ISIS-K to about 2,000 militants, he said. "Now they are going to be able to reap what they sowed."

RELATED: CIA DESTROYS EAGLE BASE

By Julian E. Barnes and Farnaz Fassihi
Aug. 27, 2021

A controlled detonation by American forces that was heard throughout Kabul has destroyed Eagle Base, the final C.I.A. outpost outside the Kabul airport, U.S. officials said on Friday.

Blowing up the base was intended to ensure that any equipment or information left behind would not fall into the hands of the Taliban.

Eagle Base, first started early in the war at a former brick factory, had been used throughout the conflict. It grew from a small outpost to a sprawling center that was used to train the counterterrorism forces of Afghanistan’s intelligence agencies.

Those forces were some of the only ones to keep fighting as the government collapsed, according to current and former officials.

“They were an exceptional unit,” said Mick Mulroy, a former C.I.A. officer who served in Afghanistan. “They were one of the primary means the Afghan government has used to keep the Taliban at bay over the last 20 years. They were the last ones fighting, and they took heavy casualties.”

Local Afghans knew little about the base. The compound was extremely secure and designed to be all but impossible to penetrate. Walls reaching 10 feet high surrounded the site, and a thick metal gate slid open and shut quickly to allow cars inside.

Once inside, cars still had to clear three outer security checkpoints where the vehicles would be searched and documents would be screened before being allowed inside the base.

In the early years of the war, a junior C.I.A. officer was put in charge of the Salt Pit, a detention site near Eagle Base. There the officer ordered a prisoner, Gul Rahman, stripped of his clothing and shackled to a wall. He died of hypothermia. A C.I.A. board recommended disciplinary action but was overruled.

A former C.I.A. contractor said that leveling the base would have been no easy task. In addition to burning documents and crushing hard drives, sensitive equipment needed to be destroyed so it did not fall into the hands of the Taliban. Eagle Base, the former contractor said, was not like an embassy where documents could be quickly burned.

The base’s destruction had been planned and was not related to the huge explosion at the airport that killed an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 American service members. But the detonation, hours after the airport attack, alarmed many people in Kabul, who feared that it was another terrorist bombing.

The official American mission in Afghanistan to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan allies is set to end next Tuesday. The Taliban have said that the evacuation effort must not be prolonged, and Biden administration officials say that continuing past that date would significantly increase the risks to both Afghans and U.S. troops.



Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes • Facebook


Farnaz Fassihi is a reporter for The New York Times based in New York. Previously she was a senior writer and war correspondent for the Wall Street Journal for 17 years based in the Middle East. @farnazfassihi

Last U.S. military flight leaves Afghanistan, abandoned equipment destroyed

THE HILL: 

The longest war in U.S. history has come to an end with the departure of the last American military flight out of Afghanistan almost 20 years after troops first arrived in the country.

American planes took off from the Kabul airport shortly before midnight local time, U.S. Central Command head Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie told reporters on Tuesday.

The last C-17 left the Hamid Karzai International Airport at 3:29 p.m. ET and cleared Afghanistan's airspace just under the Biden administration’s Aug. 31 deadline to remove all U.S. forces from the country, McKenzie said.

"I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the mission to evacuate American citizens, third-country nationals and vulnerable Afghans," McKenzie said.

"Every single U.S. service member is now out of Afghanistan," he later added.

McKenzie could not say how many people were aboard the aircraft or where it was headed, as it is still in flight, but he confirmed that 82nd Airborne Division head Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue and Ambassador Ross Wilson were on board and “were in fact the last people to stand on the ground, step on the airplane.”

The flight also carried the last remaining U.S. troops and the core diplomatic staff of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

But there are still several hundred Americans in Afghanistan who were unable to reach the airport, along with thousands of Afghans who assisted the U.S. military during the war effort.

McKenzie said no American civilians were on the last five flights to leave.

“We maintained the ability to bring them in up until immediately before departure, but we were not able to bring any Americans out. That activity ended probably about 12 hours before our exit. ...  None of them made it to the airport,” he added. 

But he maintained that even if the Biden administration had extended the deadline, “we wouldn’t have gotten everybody out that we wanted to get out and there still would’ve been people who would’ve been disappointed with that. It’s a tough situation.”

McKenzie also said the United States will continue the diplomatic evacuation mission to recover those Americans and vulnerable Afghans.

“I want to emphasize again that simply because we have left that doesn’t mean the opportunities for both Americans that are in Afghanistan who want to leave and Afghans who want to leave. They will not be denied that opportunity,” McKenzie added.

McKenzie also said the United States will continue the diplomatic evacuation mission to recover those Americans and vulnerable Afghans.

“While the military evacuation is complete, the diplomatic mission to ensure additional U.S. citizens and eligible Afghans who want to leave continues,” he said.

“Tonight's withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. It's a mission that brought Osama bin Laden to a just end, along with many of his al Qaeda co-conspirators," McKenzie added.

"And it was not a cheap mission. The cost was 2,461 U.S. service members and civilians killed and more than 20,000 who were injured. Sadly, that includes 13 service members who were killed last week by an ISIS-K suicide bomber. We honor their sacrifice today as we remember their heroic accomplishments,” he said.

McKenzie said the final days of the withdrawal, beginning from Aug. 14, was the “largest non-combatant evacuation” in the U.S. military’s history.

In those 18 days, American forces evacuated 79,000 civilians from the airport, including 6,000 Americans and more than 73,000 Special Immigrant Visa holders, consular staff, at-risk Afghans and their families, McKenzie said

Since the end of July, more than 123,000 civilians have been evacuated.

McKenzie laid out the final hours U.S. troops were in the country, noting that the military destroyed or removed remaining equipment.

Forces kept a counter rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) system in place “up until the very last minute” to protect against any rocket attacks before they “demilitarized those systems so that they’ll never be used again.”

In addition, troops made unusable up to 70 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft.

McKenzie said the Taliban were “very pragmatic and very businesslike” during the withdrawal and that Donahue spoke to the Taliban commander before leaving to coordinate “but there was no discussion” of turning over the airfield. 

Updated at 6:01 p.m.

UPDATE Breaking - explosions At Kabul airport death toll rises.

 

Washington — The Pentagon confirmed Thursday morning that an explosion occurred outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where the U.S. military has been working to evacuate scores of American citizens and at-risk Afghans from the country ahead of President Biden's August 31 deadline to complete the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said on Twitter that casualties from the blast are "unclear at this time," and the Defense Department "will provide additional details when we can."

A White House official told CBS News that Mr. Biden has been briefed on the explosion.

As the U.S. rushes to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghans who helped American troops during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, as well as those at risk from the Taliban, out of Kabul, Mr. Biden has warned of growing risk to American and allied forces on the ground with each day that passes.

The U.S. and Britain warned citizens not to go to Kabul's airport because of a terror threat outside the facility's gates. On Wednesday evening, the U.S. Embassy in the capital alerted U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and said those at three different gates "should leave immediately."

Mr. Biden spoke earlier this week of an ongoing threat posed by the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS Khorasan, or ISIS-K.

As of Thursday morning, the U.S. has evacuated 95,700 people out of Kabul since August 14, the White House said. Roughly 13,400 were flown out of the country on U.S. military and coalition flights during a 24-hour span beginning early Wednesday morning.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that 4,500 U.S. citizens and their immediate families have been shuttled out of Afghanistan in the last 10 days, and the State Department believes as many as 1,500 Americans are still in the country.

This is a developing situation, check back later for more details.

UPDATE WSJ: 

A bombing targeting the convoy of Afghanistan’s first vice president killed at least 10 people in the country’s capital, an indication of the high stakes in the U.S.-backed talks between Kabul and the Taliban to end nearly two decades of fighting.

A bomb placed in a wheelbarrow detonated near Amrullah Saleh’s convoy in Kabul early Wednesday, Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said. Mr. Saleh suffered minor injuries in an attack that also wounded more than 15 people, including several of his bodyguards, according to the ministry.

Hours after the bombing, Mr. Saleh appeared in a video message from his office with a bandage on his left hand.

“Our fight continues and I am in the service of people of Afghanistan,” he said.

No one claimed responsibility for the bombing. The Taliban quickly denied any involvement, but the Interior Ministry said the explosives were similar to ones used in previous attacks by the Haqqani wing of the insurgent group.

UPDATE: ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Kabul bombings,

@charliecbs

 reports He says the many checkpoint that were in Kabul airport under the Afghan government's control have been eliminated, opening the door for chaos: "You can't depend on the Taliban to provide security"

WSJ: CIA, U.S. Troops Conduct Missions Outside Kabul Airport to Extract Americans, Afghan Allies

 

WASHINGTON—The Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military are conducting extraction operations to evacuate Americans using helicopters and ground troops as the window begins to close for rescuing all people at risk in Afghanistan.

The CIA has launched clandestine operations to rescue Americans in and outside Kabul in recent days, according to U.S. and other officials. The missions are using American military helicopters but under the control of the CIA, a typical arrangement in such operations.

A congressional source knowledgeable about the evacuation effort said U.S. troops had gone into Kabul on joint missions with other foreign allies, including Britain and France, to designated locations where they had picked up citizens from all those nations, U.S. green-card holders, and Afghans who hold special visas for helping the U.S. military.

The air and ground operations are considered perilous under the current circumstances in the country as the U.S. has begun to assign priority on evacuating Americans over Afghans who are at risk. Those include the many thousands of Afghan interpreters and others who worked for the U.S. government but remain inside the country and face retribution from the Taliban.

The Pentagon has said it is coordinating with the Taliban on airport security, but it’s unclear if those discussions also included extraction missions.

READ MORE AT THR WALL STREET JOURNAL