Today's D Brief: Window closing in Kabul; Drone strike fallout; Knife missile in Nangarhar; Recidivism in North Korea?; And a bit more.
By Ben Watson
August 30, 2021
The D Brief
The United States has one day left to withdraw troops and citizens from Afghanistan, if it’s going to stick to the deadline U.S. officials forged with the Taliban in exchange for the group not attacking Americans. This very small window suggests many of the Afghan stories we’ll likely learn about over the next several days—indeed, weeks—will be heartbreakingly desperate, “Hail Mary” accounts of panicked, separated and stranded families and those both near and far trying to assist. (Those, like this from the Wall Street Journal, are already emerging.)
Good news: Evacuation flights out of Kabul are reportedly still departing, though the number of people flying out of Hamid Karzai International Airport has significantly declined over the course of the past several days.
116,700 people have been evacuated from Kabul since Aug. 14, and that includes about 1,200 people in the past 24 hours (ending 3 a.m. ET Monday), according to the White House.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/08/the-d-brief-august-30-2021/184941/
