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TEHRAN (Iran News) –The deputy head of Iran’s Association of Truckers Trade Unions says Afghanistan has limited the traffic of the Iranian trucks by bullying and imposing very strict rules for the movement of Iranian trucks in the country.

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The Biden White House has published a long-awaited report on the widely condemned and humiliating withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan.

U.S. forces swiftly withdrew in August 2021 as the Taliban quickly resumed power, two decades after America’s invasion and subsequent catastrophic occupation.

The 12-page redacted report pinned the blame on bad intelligence and President Joe Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump.

This is not the first time the U.S. has blamed its intelligence for foreign policy crises it initiates abroad.

Phil Wilayto, editor of The Virginia Defender quarterly newspaper, told Tehran Times, “When the U.S. has a foreign policy disaster, it tends to blame faulty intelligence.”

Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, which Washington pinned the blame on the al-Qaeda terrorist group, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan the same year.

Later in 2003, the U.S. also invaded Iraq on a pack of lies after presenting fake intelligence to the international community.

“There were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no link between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda, there were no links between Saddam Hussein and the attacks on 9/11. These were just lies concocted to justify carrying out an invasion of Iraq, which (the U.S.) wanted to accomplish, in order to extend U.S. hegemony in West Asia,” Wilayto pointed out.

Presenting the declassified summary, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby admitted mistakes had been made on Afghanistan’s withdrawal.

“Clearly we didn’t get things right” on intelligence, Kirby claimed.

Wilayto noted the Pentagon was caught completely off guard, saying “the U.S. was obviously not anticipating the Taliban advancing on and taking over the capital city of Kabul so quickly. Period. Again, this was much less a failure of the U.S. intelligence, as it was an underestimation by the U.S. military of the determination of the Afghani forces to rid their country of the U.S. occupying presence.”

The White House report also tried to divert the blame of the U.S. establishment’s disastrous occupation of Afghanistan on President Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump.

“The departing Trump administration had left the Biden administration with a date for withdrawal, but no plan for executing it. And after four years of neglect – and in some cases deliberate degradation – crucial systems, offices, and agency functions that would be necessary for a safe and orderly departure were in disrepair,” the document claimed.

It also claimed that Trump, in his final 11 months in office, had reduced the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan, allegedly reaching some 2,500 military personnel by the time Biden took over in January 2021.

“As a result… the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001,” it added.

In a social media post, Trump responded by labeling the current White House as “morons” and said they were responsible for a “grossly incompetent SURRENDER in Afghanistan.”

“Biden is responsible, no one else!” Trump wrote.

The White House report acknowledged the long-term failure of the war, including the Taliban’s surprising resilience and the weakness of the U.S.-backed Afghan army.

“After more than 20 years, more than $2 trillion dollars, and standing up an Afghan army of 300,000 soldiers, the speed and ease with which the Taliban took control of Afghanistan suggests that there was no scenario — except a permanent and significantly expanded U.S. military presence — that would have changed the trajectory,” it said.

Kirby declined to answer questions over whether Biden has any regrets for his decisions and the measures he took leading up to the very embarrassing withdrawal.

On August 26, 2021 at the crowded perimeter of Kabul’s international airport and amid a very disorganized Pentagon operation to evacuate the country, a bomb attack killed 13 US troops and 170 Afghans, where the U.S.-led military was carrying out an airlift operation in just a matter of days.

The scenes were very reminiscent to that of the U.S. military fleeing Vietnam.

The international community as well as America’s Western and regional allies watched on as the tragic scenes showed Afghan civilians in a state of panic, mobbing fleeing airliners and even falling to their deaths as they attempted to cling onto departing planes.

Kirby claimed there was a list of intelligence failures, alleging that Washington did not predict “how fast the Taliban were moving across the country” or “the degree to which they were constructing these deals in the hinterlands that kind of fell like dominos.”

“We didn’t anticipate how fast the Afghan national security forces were going to fold,” he said. “I don’t think we fully appreciated the degree of corruption that was in the officer ranks in the military.”

This is despite a watchdog that was established by Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), publishing quarterly reports on the failures of the U.S. occupation in the country.

One SIGAR report was more damaging and critical of the American occupation than the other.

Thanks to the watchdog, Congress and the U.S. establishment/deep state, including its intelligence apparatus, were fully aware of what was happening in Afghanistan, so there is no reason to blame “intelligence” for the disastrous and deadly policies Washington pursued in the country.

The CIGAR reports (nearly 70) were very detailed and clearly spelled out how the U.S. occupation was not proving any services to the Afghan population, allowing the Taliban to regain influence.

John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, regularly spoke of how significant amounts of dollars were being lost to “waste, fraud and abuse.”

In the years leading up to the collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the man appointed by Congress itself became more and more critical of the U.S. policies in the public eye. It is very sinister of the Biden White House to cite “intelligence” when so many reports were being published over so many years, documenting the fiasco of the American occupation.

The U.S. occupation led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians and the U.S. trained armed forces, which later collapsed.

In Iraq, the U.S. trained army also collapsed in the face of Daesh. One million Iraqis are estimated to have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion and other forms of intervention in the country.

“Intelligence is a hard business,” Kirby claimed.

The reality is U.S. intelligence isn’t “a hard business” for a country that annually spends trillions of dollars on its military budget.

The U.S. has a dark history of using its so-called intelligence to expand its hegemonic rule and that has come at a price.

Millions of civilians have been maimed around the world as a result of Washington’s intelligence.

It was “U.S. intelligence” that saw a significant increase in number of terrorist organizations in West Asia and beyond, ironically under Washington’s so-called “war on terror”.

The terrorist groups created by the U.S. have not only maimed a countless number of civilians in West Asia but also prevented countries from both stabilizing and using the mass natural resources in the region.

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Female-only centers of Alzahra University of Tehran, Kosar University of Bojnurd, and Hazrat-e Masoumeh University of Qom will accept Afghan girl students, deputy science minister for international affairs Vahid Haddadi-Asl announced.

Alzahra University announced readiness to admit up to 50 students, but the quota will be increased if more dormitories become available, he added.

Hazrat-e Masoumeh University of Qom will also accept at least 300 Afghan female students, both in offline and online courses, according to Haddadi-Asl.

The Taliban-run higher education ministry has announced that female students would not be allowed access to the country’s universities until further notice.

“You all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending the education of females until further notice,” said a letter issued to all government and private universities, signed by the Minister for Higher Education, Neda Mohammad Nadeem.

Iran is home to over 800,000 registered refugees and some 2.6 million undocumented Afghans. Today, more than 500,000 Afghan children- including undocumented Afghans and those who have newly arrived in Iran following the Taliban-takeover-are benefitting from Iran’s inclusive education policies, one of the most progressive in the world.

Many of the refugees living in Iran are second and third-generation, according to the UNHCR.

Some 108,000 students from 117 countries have enrolled in Iranian universities for the current academic year (started September 23), Mohammad Mohammadi Masoudi, an official with the Ministry of Science, has said.

Twenty-five percent of the foreign students studying in Iranian universities are Afghan nationals, he added.

The students are studying in different fields of science, research and technology, health and medical education, and also in the fields of humanities, Islamic sciences, Persian language and literature, law, fundamentals of Islamic law, management fields, economics, psychology, social sciences, as well as engineering, agricultural sciences, animal sciences, and basic sciences.

In the current school year which began on September 23, about 300,000 new foreign students enrolled in Iranian schools.

For the time being, 560,000 foreign students are studying in schools across the country, Education Minister Yousef Nouri said.

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The Fars news agency in a report on Tuesday wrote that “following the recent developments in Afghanistan, we have witnessed the announcement of positions and also efforts by the Islamic Republic of Iran to establish peace and stability in this country.”
Iran has hosted millions of its Afghan brothers and sisters for the past four decades, and as Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh says, Iran has never had anything but kinship with the Afghan people.

Mohammad Ebrahim Taherianfard, special representative of the Iranian Foreign Minister for Afghanistan, also continued consultations with Afghan officials during this period, and these consultations did not stop.

Readiness to assist and facilitate talks between the Afghan parties to advance the peace process in the country, declaring readiness to hold the second round of peace talks, expressing deep concern over developments in Afghanistan, keeping the Afghan people away from conflict and fratricide, and that borders of this country should be the border of peace and security, that Iran considers the security of Afghanistan as its own, and welcoming the formation of the Coordination Council and emphasizing that Afghanistan’s geography should always remain geography of peace, have been were among the positions adopted by Iranian officials in the face of developments in its eastern neighbor.

Prior to the recent developments in Afghanistan, Khatibzadeh in a statement urged all countries not to take measures that would imply that they were supposed to get involved in making decisions for the future of Afghanistan.

On August 13, Khatibzadeh expressed Iran’s concern regarding the escalation of violence in Afghanistan and the situation of people and those displaced.

The spokesman also stressed ensuring full security and safety of diplomats and diplomatic facilities as the Taliban took over the city of Herat.

The formation of Coordination Council

After the departure of Ashraf Ghani and some other officials from the country, and formation of the Coordination Council by Abdullah Abdullah, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Hamid Karzai, Former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted, “Violence and war – like occupation – are never the solution. Iran welcomes Karzai’s announcement of the formation of a Coordination Council by Afghan leaders. We hope that this initiative will lead to dialogue and a peaceful transition in Afghanistan. Iran is ready to continue its efforts to make peace.”

We are in contact with all parties

At a weekly press briefing on August 16, Foreign Ministry spokesman Khatibzadeh said: “We are closely following the developments and are in contact with all parties. The Islamic Republic of Iran, while expressing concern over the escalation of violence in Afghanistan, calls on all parties to reduce violence, maintain calm, and strive for peaceful solutions through dialogue”.

Speaking to reporters on August 23, the spokesman reaffirmed Iran’s stance vis-à-vis developments in Afghanistan.

“There is no military solution to the problems of Afghanistan, and all groups and political parties must resolve issues through negotiation and refrain from using force.”

“We are basically not at that stage right now,” he said of the Taliban’s recognition. “We are now at a stage where we must strive to form an inclusive government in Afghanistan that, if it reflects all the realities of Afghanistan and the ethnic and popular composition of Afghanistan from different perspectives, can move in that direction.”

As the diplomat highlighted it is certainly the behavior of an inclusive government in terms of its actions and commitments that can facilitate the path to recognize it.

“It is too early for us to decide now on the future government of Afghanistan. What is a priority for us is the lives and honor of the people and inclusive dialogue and formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan,” Khatibzadeh insisted.

Qureshi trip to Tehran

On September 26, Shah Mahmoud Qureshi, Foreign Minister of Pakistan, at his request and after a visit to three Central Asian countries, paid a visit to Iran and met with Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Iran’s Foreign Minister.

The two countries’ support for peace and stability in Afghanistan and formation of an inclusive government with participation of all ethnic groups was among other topics discussed by the Iranian and Pakistani foreign ministers during the meeting.

In the meeting, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs welcomed a proposal by the Pakistani side to hold a meeting of the foreign ministers of six countries neighboring Afghanistan and announced Iran’s readiness to hold the meeting.

In addition, Iran’s Special Representative for Afghanistan met with his Pakistani counterpart, who accompanied Qureshi on his visit to Tehran, and also consulted with Afghan leaders and personalities about the developments in the country.

The issue of Afghanistan and the developments in this country during this period were among the topics discussed by the Iranian Foreign Minister with a number of his counterparts, including Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi, foreign ministers of Russia and China.
EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell and some of European counterparts also discussed the issue of Afghanistan in a telephone conversation with the Iranian foreign minister.

People of Afghanistan must decide for themselves 

In a telephone conversation with Borrell, Iran’s Foreign Minister said formation of an inclusive government that reflects the ethnic and demographic composition of the country is the remedy to the Afghanistan problem.
“It is the people of Afghanistan who must decide for the future. The Islamic Republic of Iran hosts more than three and a half million Afghans in Iran, but the new wave of Afghan migration is a serious issue that requires other countries and international organizations to provide assistance.”

In the exchange of views between the foreign ministers of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China, they insisted on the need to form an inclusive government with the participation of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The two chief diplomats also emphasized the need in the campaign fight terrorism and drugs as an important priority, sending humanitarian aid without interruption and striving to keep border crossings open.

Khatibzadeh expressed Iran’s deep regret over the terrorist attacks on August 26, including at Kabul Airport.

At a weekly news conference on August 30 about a question whether Iran would recognize the Taliban in light of the Leader’s recent orders, the spokesman said: “What the Supreme Leader said has been the firm policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding Afghanistan in the last 40 years.”

“We have always stood by the people of Afghanistan and our priority has always been to ensure peace and stability and the development of the Afghan society. Afghanistan is our dear neighbor,” the official noted.

In his first televised interview on Afghanistan on August 30, Foreign Minister Abdollahian said: “We support Afghanistan so that the views of the Afghan people can be seen in determining their fate in this country, and at this point what is important is formation of an inclusive government with the participation of all ethnic Afghan groups which is a unique political solution to Afghanistan’s problems.”

Abdollahian stated: “In the case of Afghanistan if foreigners give up (interference in) Afghanistan, the leaders of Afghanistan and the leaders of all Afghan tribes, parties and groups have the ability to decide for the future of their country. We support a safe and stable Afghanistan, an Afghanistan that lives in peace and stability with its neighbors, and an Afghanistan whose people play a role in determining their own destiny.”

Speaking in the first live TV interview with the people on September 4, President Ebrahim Raisi noted, “The solution to the issue in Afghanistan is the establishment of a government based on people’s vote”.

Raisi stated, “The issue of Afghanistan has shown that the presence of the Americans not only does not create security anywhere but also undermines security”.

“Afghanistan has really suffered a great deal. With the oppression of Afghanistan by the Americans and foreign countries, this country has been oppressed for years and Afghan children are injured and disabled every day”.

Raisi added, “Today, the international community is announcing that more than 30,000 Afghan children have been injured over the past two decades (since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan), many homes have been destroyed and the people of Afghanistan have been severely affected. Today, in Iran alone, we host more than 3 million Afghans who have been displaced from their homeland”.

On Sunday night, Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of the Supreme Reconciliation Council of Afghanistan, spoke by telephone with Amir-Abdollahian and demanded that Iran send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

The two sides also stressed that it is the Afghan people who must decide the future of their country. In addition, former Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar sent a message to his Iranian counterpart.

Khatibzadeh, in his weekly news conference last week, in response to a question about possible Pakistan’s military involvement in the attacks on Panjshir, said: “The news coming from Panjshir is worrying. Sunday night’s attacks are strongly condemned. The martyrdom of Afghan leaders is deeply regrettable and deeply moving”.

Foreign Minister Abdollahian, at his meeting on September 6 with foreign ambassadors and heads of international organizations residing in Iran, referred to relations with all parties in Afghanistan and stressed the need to form an inclusive government with the participation of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan.

Expressing concern over the developments in the country and the growth of terrorism and drug trafficking in neighboring Afghanistan, the foreign minister stated: “Sending humanitarian aid is one of our priorities and despite the difficult conditions, we have tried to keep our border crossings open for sending aid and trade.”

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“My Beloved, Where Are You?” has been released by Sureh-Mehr, a major publishing house affiliated with the Art Bureau of the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization.

The collection carries 115 works by various poets, selected by Zahra Hosseinzadeh.

Several gunmen attacked Kabul University, shooting at students in their classrooms and clashing with security forces for hours on November 2, 2020.

At least 22 people were killed and 22 others wounded when gunmen stormed the university in a brutal assault.

Some of the students had calls from their mothers and fathers. One of the victims had 142 missed calls, and there was a final text message that read, “My beloved, where are you?”

The brutal attack has been strongly condemned around the world.

The message was also the theme of the Afghanistan Art Week organized by the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO in Tehran in December 2020.

Iranian artists have always shown a reaction to the oppression of Afghan people in various periods of history.

In May, Oscar-nominated Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi strongly criticized the world for not speaking out against the bomb attack outside the Sayed Al-Shuhada School in Afghanistan in the Afghan capital of Kabul that claimed the lives of over 60 people including schoolgirls.

“I regret having to live in a time when justice is a meaningless word in this age of futility… I wish we had died and not seen the death of justice and humanity, and we would not have witnessed such tragic silence over the sad martyrdom of dozens of oppressed girls from the Afghan Hazara community,” he wrote in a statement.

In addition, Iranian pianist Bardia Sadrenoori released a single titled “Afghan Child” in memory of the children killed in the terrorist attack on the school.

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The Iranian embassy stressed that if citizens urgently need an emergency trip to Afghanistan, they can travel to Kabul only for a limited time and with the assurance of a return flight, with prior coordination with the embassy.

The statement noted that citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran who live and work in the cities and regions of Afghanistan, with the exception of Kabul, are advised to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.

Clashes between the Afghan government and the Taliban have intensified in recent weeks as the United States started withdrawing its troops from the war-torn country after 20 years of occupation.

Iran, as a neighboring country, stepped in to de-escalate the tensions and help bring peace to Afghanistan by establishing contacts with both sides of the conflict. To this end, Iranian diplomats traveled to Kabul to meet Afghan leaders. They also hosted in Tehran meetings between the Taliban and the other Afghan stakeholders.

In late July, Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian, the special representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry for Afghanistan, and his accompanying delegation met with Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar in Kabul, discussing the latest developments surrounding Afghanistan.

Taherian assured the Afghan foreign minister of Tehran’s support for the peace process in Afghanistan while maintaining the achievements the Afghans have made over the past two decades.

The special envoy also called for further cooperation between Kabul and Tehran in various areas, including border cooperation and coordination between different sectors.

According to the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Atmar said he appreciates the reasonable stances of Iran in supporting peace efforts, ending violence, putting an end to arbitrary killings and torture of civilians, and human rights violations in the territories captured by the Taliban.

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During the meeting on April 1, the two diplomats inspected operations to renovate and refurbish the border crossing between the two countries and discussed border affairs, including cross-border travel.

The two sides agreed that operations to rebuild and renovate the border crossing should continue full steam ahead without affecting border and legal issues, and that such issues should be reviewed and settled only by the two countries’ joint border commission, the statement continued.

They also exchanged views on the significance of development and a trade balance between the two countries as well as the need to make efforts to regulate trips to and from the two countries by Iranian and Afghan nationals.

Among other topics discussed were the necessity of intensifying the campaign against human trafficking, drug smuggling and international terrorism, facilitating aid operations by both sides in times of natural disasters and emergency, as well as other mutual issues.
In mid-February, a huge explosion occurred at the Dougharoun-Islam Qala border point. The explosion caused a massive fire but it did not affect a key crossing on the eastern border with Afghanistan, a local Iranian official said at the time. Videos and footages circulating on social media at the time of the explosion showed dozens of fuel tankers were damaged in the massive explosion in Islam Qala.
The fire also caused massive damage to infrastructure in the area, including pylons that transmit electricity from Iran to the urban regions in Herat. At least 60 people were injured in the blaze.
Iran is a major supplier of goods to Afghanistan. Dogharoon and Islam Qala terminals are busy with tanker trucks that transport fuel across the border.

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