Today's D Brief: Taliban’s failed assassination; More US strikes in Afghanistan; Violence outside the Pentagon; Hijackers off UAE; And a bit more.
Taliban fighters tried (but failed) to kill Afghanistan’s acting defense minister in a series of attacks that involved a suicide bomber targeting a guest house Tuesday in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Eight civilians were killed and at least 20 others were wounded, the Washington Post reports, calling it “some of the most intense fighting in the Afghan capital in months.”
The Taliban say they tried to kill Acting DM Bismillah Khan Mohammadi because of the Afghan military’s “attacks against innocent people, and bombings of civilian populations,” according to one of the group’s most visible spokesmen, Zabiullah Mujahid. (That same spox is also trolling the U.S. Embassy account in Kabul today, telling the U.S., “You stood by #Kabul admin for 20 years & failed. Not damaging relations with us is need of the hour. We both have commitments, do not partake in bogus propaganda. Our people recognize your dishonesty—they trust us, not you. Close a failed chapter.”)
What is Afghanistan’s president saying today? That the Taliban is “trying to impose its own version of Islam on our nation,” President Ashraf Ghani said today, calling the group’s violent resistance “sedition, which will bring only destruction.”
And that ongoing Taliban offensive in southwestern Helmand province, centered on the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah? It’s being led by “one of 5,000 former prisoners released by the Afghan government last year under pressure from the U.S.,” Afghan and western officials told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
The latest from Lashkar Gah: “Heavy clashes [are] still ongoing,” Afghanistan’s Tolo News reports today. Some of the most concerning fighting is taking place “near the police HQ, governor’s office, prison, and other government buildings in PD1 of the city,” a local official tells Tolo.
ICYMI: More U.S. airstrikes are falling in Afghanistan as the final 5% of the U.S. military gradually departs the country, the New York Times reports, and wasted no time with the inevitable follow-up question: “Will the American air campaign continue after Aug. 31, the date the president has said would be the end of combat involvement in Afghanistan?”
More could be ordered, White House officials said, especially around contested locations near southern Kandahar City or the more centrally-located capital city of Kabul. And those strikes could fall into the month of September.
A note on optics: U.S. President Joe “Biden’s aides say that he is aware of the risks,” the Times reports, “but that he remains skeptical of any effort by the Pentagon that looks as though it is prolonging the American military engagement.” More here.
Bye, bye, AUMF? Nearly two decades after it was codified, the Senate is finally about to get rid of its Iraq war authorizations, Politico reports today from Capitol Hill. The quick read: “On Wednesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will approve a bipartisan bill to repeal the 1991 authorization for the Gulf War and the 2002 authorization for the Iraq War,” Andrew Desiderio writes; “and, according to a POLITICO tally, the bill is likely to secure the requisite 60 votes when it hits the floor later this year.” More here.
From Defense One
The US Navy Is Reversing Its Fighter-Jet Design Philosophy // Marcus Weisgerber: NavAir commander says the next-gen plane will be designed around certain cutting-edge technologies.
Pentagon Police Officer Dead, Several Other People Injured, After Attack at Metro Entrance // Tara Copp: Shooting raises new questions about whether the public transit point just outside the military’s headquarters can ever be fully secured.
A New Bill Seeks to Patch the Flaws in the Arms Export Control Act // A. Trevor Thrall, Jordan Cohen : The proposed legislation would help Congress regain a measure of sway over weapons sales.
What I Heard in the White House Basement // Alexander Vindman: I knew the president had clear and straightforward talking points—I’d written them.
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief from Ben Watson with Jennifer Hlad. If you’re not already subscribed to The D Brief, you can do that here. On this day in 1790, President George Washington signed the Tariff Act, which authorized the construction of ten vessels and marked the birth of the United States Coast Guard.
A Pentagon police officer was stabbed outside the building on Tuesday morning and later died. The officer, George Gonzalez, was a military and police veteran who had served in the Army and deployed to Iraq, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency tweeted Wednesday morning.
The attacker—who was a Marine Corps enlistee who separated from the service less than a month after taking the oath back in October 2012—also later died, ABC News reports. The man ambushed Gonzalez and stabbed him in the neck, the Associated Press reports, citing anonymous law enforcement officials. “Responding officers then shot and killed” the attacker. Read more from AP, here.
The violent incident raises questions “about what additional force protection measures may be required” for the facility, which has increased security at the metro station and throughout the building since Sept. 11, 2001, Defense One’s Tara Copp reported Tuesday.
Pentagon Force Protection Agency chief Woodrow Kusse: “The Pentagon metro station is probably one of the busiest in the transportation system. It is a hub for commuters as well as building occupants. There are a number of measures that we have in place out there. Every time an incident occurs, whether it’s here or anywhere else … you do after-actions on those, you examine them, you look for things we can do to improve.”
Heads up travelers: Metro trains will continue to bypass the Pentagon station all day Wednesday, the Washington Post reports.
Hijackers captured a ship off the UAE coast on Tuesday, but left after “recorded radio traffic appeared to reveal a crew member onboard saying Iranian gunmen had stormed the asphalt tanker,” the Associated Press reports today from the Emirates.
Involved: a Panama-flagged vessel known as “Asphalt Princess.”
Tehran be like: whaaa? “Apparently responding to the incident, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh on Tuesday denied that Iran played any role,” AP writes, noting that Khatibzadeh referred to recent maritime attacks on ships in the region as “completely suspicious.”
Perhaps most concerning: Apparently widespread loss of navigational control. A total of “six oil tankers off the coast of Fujairah announced around the same time [on Tuesday] via their Automatic Identification System trackers that they were “not under command,’” which suggested they’d “lost power and [could] no longer steer,” AP reports. Continue reading, here.
Related reading: “Phantom Warships Are Courting Chaos in Conflict Zones,” via WIRED from July 29.
The U.S. Army says it will court-martial a soldier charged with his role in a Syrian firefight that left at least one regime soldier dead just under a year ago. Task and Purpose has the story.
And back stateside, “A 28-year-old man has been given an eight-year sentence for shooting at two National Guard members who were stationed in north Minneapolis in April,” the local Star-Tribune reported on July 29.
A Ukrainian war vet was arrested today in Kiev after entering a government building with what he claimed was a hand grenade. “I won’t leave here alive, I’ll go to jail for 10 years,” he reportedly said before his arrest. “It was not clear whether he made any demands,” Agence France-Presse reports, and adds the man now faces up to 15 years in prison. Tiny bit more, here.
And lastly: Today, President Biden meets with Dr. Eric Lander, his science advisor, “to discuss preparing for future pandemics,” the White House says in its public schedule.
Also today: The Pentagon’s top Central and Southern Europe policy official, Alton Buland, addressed a virtual Atlantic Council event on “Enhancing Security in the Black Sea.” That began at 10 a.m. ET. Details here.
And the U.S. Navy’s top officer at Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. John Aquilino, is expected to speak today at 2 p.m. EDT for the virtual 2021 Aspen Security Forum. DVIDS is carrying that one here.