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Child brides & terrorist ties? US struggles to identify many of
100k+ Afghans it evacuated from Kabul
3 Sep, 2021 23:45
Evacuations at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 30, 2021.
© US Marine Corps/Staff Sgt. Victor Mancillal
As the US began to identify and vet 100,000-plus Afghans evacuated in the Kabul airlift, diplomats sought guidance on claims of sex trafficking of underage girls, while at least 100 people were flagged for possible extremism.
President Joe Biden had declared the Kabul airlift an “extraordinary” success, pointing to 124,000 people extracted from Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover. Fewer than 6,000 were US citizens, however, and most of the Afghans who made it onto the evacuation flights were not the translators that worked with NATO troops or local employees of Western NGOs – many of them remained in Kabul and are currently in hiding.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday that the administration was “still figuring out” who all the evacuees were, but claimed up to 80% of them were “at risk” Afghans.
Meanwhile, internal State Department documents leaked to CNN and AP indicated concern by US officials over what looked like sex trafficking – reports of underage Afghan girls listed as “wives” of much older men.
Diplomats in Doha in the United Arab Emirates – where Afghan evacuees were processed – referred to “numerous” incidents of this nature. Officials at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, where the evacuees were brought, sought “urgent guidance” in the matter of these child brides, AP reported on Friday, citing internal documents in their possession. Sources also spoke of a report from Abu Dhabi that documented claims by some of the girls that they had been raped.
“Intake staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families,” says a situation report by the Afghanistan Task Force, dated August 27 under number 63, as quoted by AP. “Department of State has requested urgent guidance.”
Good luck with that. Denmark has been dealing with this for 6 years and still doesn't have it figured out.
The reports attracted the attention of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who accused the Biden administration of importing “a human rights catastrophe” into the US and conducting “literally child trafficking.”
Cruz later issued a statement accusing the White House of rushing to bring the evacuees into the US, threatening the security and health of Americans by not screening them for Covid-19 or potential terrorist ties, and even incentivizing abuse.
“There have been multiple cases of child brides and polygamous families from Afghanistan arriving at military bases here in America as part of their botched evacuation,” Cruz said. “Every Biden-Harris official linked to this disgrace should and must be held accountable.”
Cruz’s adviser Omri Ceren also highlighted other issues, such as evacuees getting flagged for links to terrorist groups or the Taliban – the US seems to not differentiate between the two – and an unknown number of evacuees testing positive for the coronavirus upon arrival.
According to NBC News, of the 30,000 Afghans brought to the US so far, about 10,000 needed “additional screening.” The 100 flagged for possible terrorist ties were among that group, and two of them were flown out to Kosovo for further vetting. The US-backed government in Kabul was the first to recognize the breakaway province of Serbia, when it declared independence in 2008 in violation of UN rules.
Earlier in the week, Breitbart reported that at least one of the refugees was actually a convicted rapist, deported from the US in 2017, but now back as part of the airlift. NBC’s sources said Friday that “other evacuees” currently in the Washington, DC area had been deported from the US for criminal offenses, and that the authorities were now trying to decide what to do with them.
“If and when we obtain derogatory information, we know how to address that,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters on Friday. “Those muscles are very well exercised,” he said, adding that “we do feel confident in the safety and security of the American people.”
Other states taking in Afghan refugees also reported problems. German authorities (2nd story on link) have so far flagged three of the refugees with forged documents and four who had been previously deported for “serious crimes,” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters on Friday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of journalists working for US government-funded outlets had been left behind in Afghanistan, as well as many current and former interpreters working with US troops over the years – including a man named Mohammed, who helped rescue then-senators Joe Biden, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel when their helicopter went down in a blizzard in 2008.
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Gunmen kidnap more than 70 students at school in northwest Nigeria
By Clyde Hughes
A female student who was kidnapped from a Nigerian school in March is seen after her release.
Officials said 73 students from a secondary school in Zamfara state were abducted on Wednesday.
File Photo by EPA-EFE
Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Authorities said Thursday that more than 70 students were kidnapped by gunmen from a school in northwestern Nigeria, just days after a group of other students were freed from their captors.
Officials said the attackers abducted at least 73 students from a secondary school in the Kaya area of Zamfara state.
"When they arrived at the school, they blocked some roads leading to the school and began to shoot indiscriminately in order to scare away residents of the town, while some moved into the school and took some of the students away," Kaya official Mallam Abu Kaya said, according to Punch.
A former local council member said four of his daughters were taken.
"There is no security agent in the school despite the security challenges we are facing here," he said, according to Punch. "Everybody knows that Kaya is one of the most dangerous spots because of the location of the town."
Town officials said a rescue team is looking for the missing children.
Northern Nigeria has experienced a rash of school kidnappings. Earlier this year, there were four mass abductions over a three-month period. Nearly 300 who were also taken in Zamfara state were released by their captors in March.
Zamfara Gov. Bello Matawalle called on local residents to start fighting back with any weapons available to them.
Right, sticks and pitchforks against machine guns. That should work out well. Why doesn't the government protect them as they should? Could it be because most are Christians?
The kidnapping Wednesday at the Government Day Secondary School in the Maradun Local Government District occurred just days after 18 other students were freed in Zamfara after gunmen kidnapped them from an agricultural college.
Hundreds of schoolchildren have been abducted in Nigeria over the past several years, including the Chibok Girls in 2014.
Zamfara State, Nigeria
Marriage officiator dismissed from job for marrying minor
He got a forged certificate from a doctor claiming his bride was 16, when she was only 14
Published: September 11, 2021 17:27
Tawfiq Nasrallah, Senior News Editor
under the legal age of marriage. Representative image. Image Credit: Getty Images
Dubai: An Egyptian man has been dismissed from his job as a marriage officiator at the Ministry of Justice after it was found that he had married a minor girl under a customary marriage contract, local media reported. A customary (Urfi) marriage contract means a marriage that is not officially registered. Undocumented ‘Urfi' marriages are increasingly popular among Egyptian youth.
According to media reports, the clerk married the 14-year-old despite the fact that she was under the legal age of marriage.
He even brought a forged certificate from a doctor claiming she was 16 and called another marriage officiator to oversee the ceremony but he refused, suspecting she was younger than 16.
However, the man did not back down and brought another officiator and married the girl under a customary contract.
A resident of the neighbourhood where the man lives informed the Ministry of Justice about him, which resulted in his dismissal from his job.
He tried to challenge the ministry’s decision before Cairo Administrative Court but the State Commissioner said that the plaintiff had violated his duty, and did not respect his age and job.
The high cost of marriage forces many young couples to wait several years before they get married. Conservative Egyptian society forbids sex before marriage, so many young people consider the ‘Urfi' marriage a solution.
‘Urfi marriages are conducted by a Muslim cleric in the presence of two witnesses. However, they are not officially registered and are not legally, financially binding on the man. Couples married in this way often meet in secret and avoid the expense of renting an apartment.
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