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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.

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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.

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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 ...

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

Taliban sources tell Al Jazeera that US officials assured them during a meeting in Doha.

Doha, Qatar The United States has assured Afghanistans Taliban rulers that Washington will not fund any armed groups or non-state actors in the country, Taliban sources have told Al Jazeera.

The assurances were welcomed by the Taliban as Tajik armed groups, which have been backed by the West in the past, continue to challenge the groups leadership even as it has managed to contain the Tajik-dominated National Resistance Front and other groups aligned with the former Western-backed government since it returned to power in August last year.

The assurances were given during a meeting between US Department of State officials and Taliban representatives in Doha earlier this month.

While few details about the meeting in the Qatari capital are available, Taliban sources told Al Jazeera its members met with members of a high level US delegation, including CIA deputy director.

This meeting was the first since July when the US said it killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone attack on his hiding place in Afghanistans capital, Kabul.

Al-Zawahiris presence in Afghanistan led the West to accuse the Taliban of violating the 2020 Doha Agreement, in which the Afghan group agreed not to provide safe haven to al-Qaeda and other armed groups.

The Taliban swept into power last year in a lightning offensive but violence by armed groups such as ISIL affiliate ISKP has surged in recent months, posing a security challenge to the group.

In the meeting, the Taliban also conveyed its rejection of the US announcement that it would transfer $3.5bn in frozen Afghan central bank assets into a Swiss-based trust, according to the Taliban sources, who have knowledge about the meetings.

Last month, the Taliban said the US decision to put part of nearly $10bn in Afghan assets which it froze last August in an attempt to keep the Taliban from accessing it into trust was unacceptable and a violation of international norms.

The US announcement had said the fund will be managed by an international board of trustees and used for debt payments, electricity, food, printing new currency and other essential needs and services.

The Afghan group has repeatedly called for the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen funds, including international aid that was suspended after the Taliban takeover, to help its dying economy. Sanctions that had been placed on the Taliban during their first period of rule that ended in 2001 came back into force with them taking power last year.

More than half of Afghanistans 39 million people need humanitarian help and six million are at risk of famine, the United Nations said in August.

No country has recognised the Talibans self-styled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and its diplomatic and financial isolation has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the country, which has suffered from decades of war, including the last 20 years under US occupation.

The international community has urged the Taliban to respect human rights, including allowing girls access to schools and workplaces. But the group has put in place increasing curbs on human rights, further angering the international community and dashing any hopes of recognition.

However, the revelations about the Doha meeting show the US continues to engage with the Taliban despite the rift.

A state department spokesperson confirmed the Doha meetings to Al Jazeera.

As weve made clear, well continue to engage the Taliban pragmatically regarding American interests, she told Al Jazeera.

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US will not fund non-state actors in Afghanistan: Taliban sources

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A gay Afghan man was kidnapped and shot to death by the Taliban, according to activists who knew him, Pink News was the first to report.

Hamed Sabouri of Kabul, Afghanistan, died on August 5, activists said. The news of the 22-year-old's death only became public this week after his former boyfriend informed the media.

Graphic video footage of a murder, which Insider has viewed, appears to show a man resembling Sabouri being shot in the neck and head at least 12 times.

Days later, the Taliban sent the disturbing execution video to Sabouri's relatives and friends, who, in turn, forwarded it to the Afghan LGBTQ+ group Roshaniya.

In a statement to Insider, Nemat Sadat, Roshaniya's executive director, said: "Hamed Sabouri was a gay man with big dreams that have now been shattered."

Sadat said Sabouri, who had wanted to be a doctor, had "endured discrimination his whole life for being gay and his life came to an abrupt end with no one there to help him."

The footage, Sadat said, shows "the Taliban's merciless brutality against LGBT+ people in Afghanistan."

Bahar (his nickname, used to protect his identity), a gay Afghan man in a relationship with Sabouri, was one of the recipients of the video. "I think the Taliban wanted to send a dangerous message to his family," he told Insider.

Bahar described his former boyfriend as a "very kind boy" who was "brutally killed" because of his sexuality.

Bahar said he thought Sabouri was joking when he told him in July that the Taliban was targeting him and was "in danger" for being gay. However, Sabouri was abducted at the start of August, and his body was discovered five days later, Bahar said.

Since Sabouri's death, Bahar said he had been arrested by the Taliban twice. He said he was sexually assaulted in prison and managed to escape on two separate occasions by bribing prison officers and hiding in a garbage truck.

The Taliban searched Bahar's family home on Friday, he said, and informed his mother that they were looking to arrest him again. "If I am arrested this time, I will be executed or stoned," Bahar said. "My life is not safe."

Bahar, who is in hiding, is the media outreach officer of Behesht a collective for LGBTQ Afghans.

In a statement provided to Insider, Behesht said: "The Taliban didn't only kill Hamed Sabouri. They buried the aspirations of 1,250 Afghan LGBTQ+ who are part of Behesht Collective and the hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ outside of our network who remain stuck in Afghanistan."

The statement continued: "If the world doesn't help us, then we will all be gone like Hamed. Please help us get out of this hellhole."

When the Taliban took over, Insider spoke to several gay men in Afghanistan who described how they were living in fear. One Afghan activist predicted gay people in Afghanistan would be "weeded out and exterminated."

In a January 2022 report by Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International, LGBTQ Afghans described fleeing their homes, being attacked by family members, and being gang-raped by Taliban members.

October 20, 2022: The main images in this article were replaced pending a review of the photos originally used..

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Afghanistan: Taliban Shot Gay Man Dead, Sent Video Footage to Family

"President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business," Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said at the House Jan. 6 committee meeting Thursday. "One key example is this: President Trump issued an order for large-scale troop withdrawals." (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

After the 2020 election, then-President Trump rushed to sign an immediate withdrawal order to pull troops out of Afghanistan in what a member of the congressional committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, described as evidence he knew his term was coming to an end.

Knowing that he had lost and that he had only weeks left in office, President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said. One key example is this: President Trump issued an order for large-scale troop withdrawals.

In swiftly signing the order on Nov. 11, 2020, to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan and Somalia before incoming President Bidens inauguration, Kinzinger argued, Trump disregarded concerns about the consequences for fragile governments on the front lines of the fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorists.

Military and national security leaders panned the order in recorded interviews with Jan. 6 investigators.

It is odd. It is non-standard, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told the panel. It is potentially dangerous. I personally thought it was militarily not feasible nor wise.

Gen. Keith Kellogg, former Vice President Mike Pence's national security advisor, said he told the White House Presidential Personnel Office and Douglas Macgregor, a former advisor to the Defense secretary, that if I ever saw anything like that, I would do something physical, because I thought what that was doing was a tremendous disservice to the nation.

Kellogg said an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan wouldve been catastrophic and a debacle.

During the portion of the committees business meeting that Kinzinger led, the panel highlighted interviews and depositions from top Trump administration officials indicating that Trump was fully aware that he had lost the presidential election to Biden and had even conceded as much in private.

I remember maybe a week after the election was called, I popped into the Oval [Office] just to, like, give the president the headlines and see how he was doing, former White House communications director Alyssa Farah told the committee in an interview clip. And he was looking at the TV and he said, Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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Trump signed order for immediate 'large-scale troop withdrawals' from ...