World

US failure in Taliban intel has opened Afghanistan up to China, Russia

Published

2 years ago

August 18, 2024

Press Room

US failure in Taliban intel has opened Afghanistan up to China, Russia

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The massive intelligence failure in the lead up to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan not only led to a chaotic evacuation, the death of 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans, as well as the complete Taliban takeover – it created a security vacuum that U.S. adversaries are taking advantage of.

The U.S. and its allies have seen a rise in anti-Western sentiment that has been largely spearheaded by China and Russia, who have bolstered ties in the wake of Washington’s opposition to Moscow’s war in Ukraine and Beijing’s aggressive posture in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

However, as the U.S. looks to distance itself from its decadeslong War on Terror, adversaries like China and Russia have increasingly expanded their influence in South Asia and the Middle East.

Afghanistan’s acting First Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar, left, and China’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Wang Yu attend a press conference to announce an oil extraction contract with a Chinese company in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Jan. 5, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD SAHEL ARMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

TALIBAN PARADES AMERICAN WEAPONS 3 YEARS AFTER CHAOTIC WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN

“We don’t understand that when we turn our back to Afghanistan, and we just want to close the door and move on…we are leaving a vacuum there,” Michael Rubin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and expert on security issues in the Middle East and South Asia, told Fox News Digital. “Someone else is going to fill it.”

While no nation has officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, some nations, including the U.S.’s top adversaries, have moved forward with establishing diplomatic relations with the extremist group.

Last year, Beijing said the Taliban should not be “excluded from the international community,” and reports earlier this year suggested Moscow was considering removing the Taliban from its terrorist list – a further indication that both China and Russia are looking to use the region for their strategic aims.

Not only does the Taliban’s opposition to Western ideology play into Russian hands in spreading anti-American sentiment, Moscow is looking to expand trade with Afghanistan and other nations in the region to further alleviate economic pressure caused by Western sanctions.

Though sanctions are not the only motivating factor in expanding trade across South Asia.

UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters fly during a military parade to mark the third anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan at Bagram Air Base in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

The Taliban last year announced its intent to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and reports have suggested that Beijing is supplying the Taliban with drones, which could hamper the U.S.’s “over-the-horizon” strategy when it comes to Afghanistan.

AFTER 3 YEARS OF TALIBAN RULE, LIFE CONTINUES TO GET WORSE IN AFGHANISTAN

The U.S.’s inability to foresee the Taliban takeover was not just an intelligence failure, it was indicative of a greater lapse in understanding of adversarial threats, explained Rubin. “The other issue, which I wouldn’t call an intelligence failure, I would call it a diplomatic failure – was the refusal to address Pakistan realistically,” Rubin said.

Rubin pointed to findings one decade into the war in Afghanistan that showed 90% of the ammonium nitrate being used in Taliban roadside bombs were coming from two fertilizer factories in neighboring Pakistan.

Pakistani authorities claimed to be working with Washington in 2011 to stop smuggling efforts at a time when the U.S. was scrambling to stop al Qaeda and Taliban attacks, just months after the U.S. saw its deadliest year in Afghanistan, with the death of nearly 500 American soldiers and more than 700 coalition forces.

Though the additional discovery and subsequent assassination of al Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Usama Bin Laden in May 2011, left many questioning the reliability of the Washington-Islamabad relationship – a question that remains to this day.

U.S. Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade walk towards helicopter transport as part of Operation Khanjar at Camp Dwyer in Helmand Province in Afghanistan on July 2, 2009. (Manpreet Romana/AFP via Getty Images)

Pakistan has engaged in a shadow war with insurgent groups on its border with Afghanistan, but Islamabad is also suspected of having aided the Taliban through covert operations.

Despite its ambiguous security position, the U.S. continues to keep close ties with Pakistan, remaining its largest export market and a leading investor in the nation – a relationship that has not gone unnoticed by China and Russia.

Beijing has also looked to Islamabad to expand bilateral economic partnerships through its Belt and Road Initiative, particularly the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, in which Beijing has invested some $62 billion.

Additionally, despite international pressure to walk a fine line when it comes to Russia, Pakistan has signaled it may be willing to aid Moscow in sidestepping the Western sanctions aimed at crippling its war effort through a “barter” trading system – potentially expanding an alliance that could further burden the U.S. in a region where it needs to maintain positive relations.

“It’s wrong, simply, to look at Afghanistan in isolation,” Rubin said, nodding to the root of the U.S.’s failure to assess the region’s overall state of security. “We have a tendency not to see the forest through the trees.”

A yearslong probe released in 2023 showed that the collapse in U.S. intelligence spanning across the Trump and Biden administrations was rooted in Washington’s failure to correctly interpret the Afghan government’s ability to function without U.S. support.

BLINKEN PRESSURED TO FREEZE AFGHANISTAN AID AFTER REVELATION NEARLY $300M COULD HAVE GONE TO TALIBAN

Taliban fighters celebrate the third anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

HOW THE US USED AI TO TAKE ON THE TALIBAN AMID DRAWDOWN

“The Taliban were running roughshod over us, and our intelligence wasn’t picking up a thing,” Rubin said. “We were looking at Afghanistan through the lens of idealism and ideology. Here we were building a democracy. From an Afghan point of view, they were looking at it through the lens of survival.”

The expert explained that Kabul fell as quickly as it did because the Taliban had been making inroads across the nation with local governors and district chiefs for one to two years ahead of the withdrawal – meaning the fall of Afghanistan came down to momentum and defections.

“You actually had lots of families that would send one son to the Afghan National Security Forces – the army we were training – and the other son to the Taliban,” Rubin explained. “The idea wasn’t that they were favoring one power over the other, but this way if one of their family members were kidnapped at a checkpoint, they would always have someone they could call to try to get them sprung free.”

Ultimately, the U.S.’s inability to understand Afghans, who lived under the constant threat of war for half a century following a coup in 1973, the Soviet-Afghan war throughout the 1980s, Taliban rule in the1990s and then the 20-year-long U.S. War on Terror, meant they did not recognize that the everyday Afghan would not fully trust that they could rely on the Afghan government without U.S. backing.

“It’s what Usama Bin Laden said,” Rubin continued, “when you have a choice between a strong horse and a weak pony…it’s natural to tie yourself to the strong horse. That’s what Afghans do.”

Taliban supporters parade through the streets of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2023 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Two years ago, the Taliban completed their return to power in Afghanistan after the fall of the Western-backed government and rapid evacuations of foreign militaries, organizations and many Afghans who worked with them. In the time since, no country has formally recognized Taliban rule. (Nava Jamshidi/Getty Images)

Open source intelligence also showed that the Taliban had been making gains across Afghanistan in the year leading up to the withdrawal and questions have since mounted over why neither the Trump nor the Biden administration adjusted withdrawal plans accordingly.

“Unfortunately, ego always trumps good judgment when it comes to Washington policymaking,” Rubin said. “The second issue was just exhaustion, and this notion that it was a two-decade war, the longest war in American history, and that by supporting the resistance, we would be restarting.”

“It was a persuasive argument,” he added.

World

A look at some of the contenders to be Iran’s supreme leader after the killing of Khamenei

Published

6 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

A look at some of the contenders to be Iran’s supreme leader after the killing of Khamenei

Iran’s leaders are scrambling to replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the country for 37 years before he was killed in the surprise U.S. and Israeli bombardment.

It’s only the second time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that a new supreme leader is being chosen. Potential candidates range from hard-liners committed to confrontation with the West to reformists who seek diplomatic engagement.

The supreme leader has the final say on all major decisions, including war, peace and the country’s disputed nuclear program.

In the meantime, a provisional governing council composed of President Masoud Pezeshkian, hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and senior Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Reza Arafi is guiding the country through its biggest crisis in decades. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that a new supreme leader would be chosen early this week.

The supreme leader is appointed by an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts, who by law are supposed to quickly name a successor. The panel consists of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected after their candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog.

Khamenei had major influence over both clerical bodies, making it unlikely the next leader will mark a radical departure.

Here are the top contenders.

Mojtaba Khamenei

The son of Khamenei, a mid-level Shiite cleric, is widely considered a potential successor. He has strong ties to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard but has never held office. His selection could prove awkward, as the Islamic Republic has long criticized hereditary rule and cast itself as a more just alternative.

Ayatollah Ali Reza Arafi

Arafi is a member of the provisional government council. The senior Shiite cleric was handpicked by Khamenei to be a member of the Guardian Council in 2019, and three years later he was elected to the Assembly of Experts. He leads a network of seminaries.

Hassan Rouhani

Rouhani, a relative moderate, was president of Iran from 2013 to 2021 and reached the landmark nuclear agreement with the Obama administration that U.S. President Donald Trump scrapped during his first term. Rouhani served on the Assembly of Experts until 2024, when he said he was disqualified from running for reelection. Rouhani criticized it as an infringement on Iranians’ political participation.

Hassan Khomeini

Khomeini is the most prominent grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He is also seen as a relative moderate, but has never held government office. He currently works at his grandfather’s mausoleum in Tehran.

Ayatollah Mohammed Mehdi Mirbagheri

Mirbagheri is a senior cleric popular with hard-liners who serves on the Assembly of Experts.

He was close to the late Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a fellow hard-liner who wrote that Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce “special weapons,” a veiled reference to nuclear arms.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mirbagheri denounced the closure of schools as a “conspiracy.”

He is currently the head of the Islamic Cultural Center in Qom, the main center for Islamic teaching in Iran.

World

US cleared to use British bases for limited strikes on Iranian missile capabilities

Published

7 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

US cleared to use British bases for limited strikes on Iranian missile capabilities

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The U.S. has been cleared to use British bases for limited strikes on Iran’s missile capabilities after Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed off on the plan, and while U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey stated on Sunday Britain had “stepped up alongside the Americans.”

“The only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source, in their storage depots or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles,” Starmer confirmed in a recorded statement to the nation.

“The U.S. has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose,” he said. “We have taken the decision to accept this request.”

The decision came amid escalation across the Middle East in the wake of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory missile and drone attacks, raising fears of a broader regional conflict.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed off on a plan to use British bases for limited strikes on Iranian missile capabilities. (Kin Cheung / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

On Feb. 28, in the wake of Operation Epic Fury, Starmer confirmed British planes “are in the sky today” across the Middle East “as part of coordinated regional defensive operations to protect our people, our interests and our allies.”

Healey went on to disclose Sunday that two Iranian missiles were fired in the direction of Cyprus, where Britain maintains key sovereign base areas.

The Royal Air Force confirmed that Typhoon jets operating from Qatar as part of the joint U.K.-Qatar Typhoon Squadron successfully intercepted an Iranian drone heading toward Qatar.

About 300 British personnel are stationed at a naval facility in Bahrain, where Iranian missiles and drones struck nearby areas.

“We’re taking down the drones that are menacing either our bases, our people or our allies,” Healey told “Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips” on Sky. “We’ve stepped up alongside the Americans. We’ve stepped up our defensive forces in the Middle East. We’re flying those sorties.”

ISRAEL’S LARGEST EVER MILITARY FLYOVER HAMMERS IRANIAN MILITARY TARGETS

British Defense Secretary John Healey stressed that the U.K. had “no part” in the American-Israeli strikes on Iran. (Peter Nicholls/Pool via Reuters)

Healey also made sure to stress that the U.K. had “no part” in the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and insisted all British actions were defensive. “All our actions are about defending U.K. interests and defending U.K. allies,” he said.

When asked if the U.K. would join the U.S. in offensive action, Healey said, “I’m not going to speculate,” according to Sky News.

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Downing Street also confirmed Feb. 28 that Starmer and President Donald Trump had spoken by phone about the “situation in the Middle East,” the BBC reported.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Downing Street for comment.

Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.

World

Pakistan calls troops, orders 3-day curfew as 24 killed in pro-Iran rallies

Published

8 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Pakistan calls troops, orders 3-day curfew as 24 killed in pro-Iran rallies

Army deployed and some areas in northern Gilgit-Baltistan region put under curfew after deadly violence over Khamenei’s killing.

By AFP, Anadolu and The Associated Press

Published On 2 Mar 2026

Pakistan has called in the military and imposed a three-day curfew in some areas following deadly protests over the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a joint United States-Israeli attack on Saturday.

At least 24 people were killed and dozens injured in clashes between protesters and security forces across the country on Sunday, prompting authorities to tighten security around the US embassy and consulates.