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1. Taliban to impose their interpretation of Sharia law in Afghanistan  CNN
2. Afghanistan leader imposes sharia across the country  Fox News
3. Taliban leader orders full enforcement of Sharia law in Afghanistan  The Times of Israel
4. Taliban Bring Back Executions And Amputations In Afghanistan  Countercurrents.org
5. Taliban leader: Afghanistan judges must enforce Shariah punishments  JURIST
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Taliban to impose their interpretation of Sharia law in Afghanistan - CNN

The Participants Discussed Issues Related to Afghanistan, Including the Current ... - Latest Tweet by  LatestLY

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The Participants Discussed Issues Related to Afghanistan, Including the Current ... - Latest Tweet by - LatestLY

Tens of thousands of Afghans who are trying to get to America under a special visa program for U.S. allies and hundreds of thousands of their family members are stuck in a State Department backlog that is getting worse 14 months after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

President Biden pledged to rescue Afghan interpreters and others who worked with the U.S. during the 20-year occupation in Afghanistan, and said in July 2021 that America would "continue to fulfill our promise" to those who "served shoulder-to-shoulder" with U.S. troops.

But a report from the State Departments Office of Inspector General (OIG) says Afghans who are trying to apply for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) that would get them to the U.S. are still stuck in bureaucratic red tape. The State Department is so far behind that hundreds of thousands of emails have not even been opened yet, according to the report.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken is overseeing a visa program for Afghan allies that is failing to move fast enough to keep up with demand. (Stefani Reynolds/Pool Photo via AP)

"By May 2022, there was a backlog of 61,888 principal Afghan SIV applicants in process with an additional 325,000 unopened emails in the SIV application email inbox," the report said. It added that in May of this year, staff were "still opening unread emails dated from August 2021."

In response to the OIG report, State said that by the end of August it had cut the number of unopened emails to 140,175, "almost half the May 2022 figure."

Some of those opened emails are still mired in the application process. OIG found that the backlog of SIV applicants grew dramatically in the eight months ending in May 2022. The 61,888 backlog of principal applicants is up dramatically from 27,000 in October 2021, just weeks after the hasty U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that left 13 U.S. service members dead.

GRASSLEY ACCUSES FBI OF HIDING BEHIND CLASSIFICATION AMID CONCERNS OF INADEQUATE VETTING OF AFGHAN EVACUEES

Families evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, walk through the terminal after arriving at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Virginia, in 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

The report added that nearly 260,000 eligible family members of those applicants are also still waiting for SIVs.

"The principal application backlog has been increasing consistently since at least October 2021," the OIG said.

The report found that while Congress set a goal of completing the SIV application process in nine months, it is routinely taking much longer than that to process Afghan allies. "Processing times for Afghan SIV applicants have consistently exceeded guidelines, with applications stalled at various stages of the process," the OIG said.

HAWLEY TO INTRODUCE BILL TO CREATE SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL

President Joe Biden pledged to help Afghans who stood "shoulder-to-shoulder" with U.S. troops. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

A State Department official told Fox News Digital that 18,000 SIVs have been granted to Afghans and their family members under the Biden administration, and about 9,200 of those were approved since the U.S. left Afghanistan in August 2021.

"Since taking office, at the Presidents direction, we have undertaken substantial efforts to improve the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program, make it more efficient, and process SIVs more expeditiously while continuing to safeguard our national security," the official said.

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The OIG report made a series of recommendations on how to improve the process, all of which were rejected at least partly by the State Department. For example, OIG recommended a new staffing plan to reduce the SIV backlog to meet the congressional goal of completing SIV applications in nine months.

State rejected that idea and said this recommendation is based on an incorrect assertion that Congress requires applications to be done in nine months, when it instead is a "target timeframe."

Pete Kasperowicz is a politics editor at Fox News Digital.

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Bidens plan to rescue Afghan allies is failing due to State Department ...

In the latest crackdown on international media in Afghanistan, foreign journalist and photographer Stefanie Glinski has been barred from entering the country after being targeted by the Taliban for her critical reporting. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the harassment and intimidation against Glinski and urges the Taliban to uphold press freedom and cease its persecution of Afghan journalists.

Glinski, who spent four years in Afghanistan reporting for several news outlets including The Guardian and Foreign Policy, left Kabul in July but began to fear for her safety following the recent investigation of her work by members of the Taliban.

In a statement on social media, the journalist described how the Taliban raised concerns regarding an article she published in Foreign Policy titled Taliban wage war over coal in northern Afghanistan, and social posts Glinski wrote about the Taliban in Pakistan.Glinski said she faced harassment and intimidation by Taliban officials via WhatsApp, with the Taliban bombarding her with questions regarding the story and its content and demanding she disclose her sources.

Glinski said the Taliban also accused her of making false accusations in her reports, despite materials being directly attributed to interviewees. The Taliban also threatened the cancellation of visas and non-entry to Afghanistan for all foreign journalists writing journalistic material the Taliban deemed unsubstantiated.

Since arriving in Kabul in 2018, Glinski has reported extensively on Afghanistans ongoing humanitarian crisis and the Talibans takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. The status of the Taliban investigation into her reporting is currently unknown.

In recent months, Taliban militants have targeted both local and foreign journalists for their news coverage. In August, WION news correspondent Anas Mallick was abducted and assaulted by Taliban authorities. In July, Australian journalist Lynne ODonnell was intimidated and forced to publicly retract articles that were critical of the Taliban.

The IFJ said: The continuing harassment and intimidation of both local and foreign journalists and media workers in Afghanistan is a grave violation of press freedom. The Taliban must allow all journalists to work independently without fear of reprisal. The IFJ condemns the targeting of Stefanie Glinski for her critical reporting and demands the Taliban cease its persecution of Afghanistans media."

(IFJ)

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Afghanistan: Taliban Ban And Harass Foreign Journalist

1. Let's Not Kid Ourselves: Afghanistan's Taliban Regime Will Not Become More Inclusive  Lawfare
2. Afghanistan Under the Taliban: Findings on the Current Situation Stimson Center  Stimson Center
3. Afghanistan: with civil war on the cards, the west needs to identify a moderate ally to support  The Conversation Indonesia
4. Stabilizing Afghanistan - CounterPunch.org  CounterPunch
5. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Let's Not Kid Ourselves: Afghanistan's Taliban Regime Will Not Become More Inclusive - Lawfare