This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- State Dept. issues alarming Afghanistan travel warning
- Afghan militia strategy revives hostility and conflicts of 1990s crisis civil war
- Hackers obtain IRS tax filings for 104,000 taxpayers
State Dept. issues alarming Afghanistan travel warning
Afghan security forces patrol in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on April 30 (Reuters)
The State Dept. on Friday issued a dire travel warning for Afghanistan that indicates that the security situation is unstable across the entire country. This warning goes much farther than any previous administration statements about Afghanistan:
The U.S. government remains highly concerned about possible attacks on U.S. citizens (whether visiting or residing in Afghanistan), U.S. facilities, businesses, and perceived U.S. and foreign interests. Attacks may target official government convoys and compounds, including Afghan and U.S. government facilities, foreign embassies and military installations, as well as restaurants, hotels, airports, non-governmental organization (NGO) offices, international organizations, religious institutions, educational centers, foreign guest houses, and other commercial entities.
Extremists associated with various Taliban networks and members of other armed opposition groups are active in every province of the country. Despite numerous security operations and checkpoints by Afghan and coalition forces in and around the capital, Kabul is at high risk for militant attacks, including vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED), direct and indirect fire, and suicide bombings. The same risks also exist in other major cities in Afghanistan, including Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Kandahar. A strong possibility for hostile acts exists throughout the country at all times, either targeted or random, against both U.S. and other foreign nationals. An ongoing risk of kidnapping exists throughout Afghanistan.
The dire warning indicates that provinces across the country are unstable, and that even heavily protected areas in the capital city Kabul are unsafe.
This point was underscored late Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, when heavily armed militants stormed an upscale, heavily protected neighborhood in Kabul, resulting in a fierce gun battle and at least 20 explosions. At this writing, the attack is still ongoing.
The new travel advisory represents a major change in position by the administration, essentially admitting that the withdrawal plan from Afghanistan is not working. It comes at the same time that Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter admitted that the Iraq plan is not working, because “the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight.” Both announcements were made over the Memorial Day weekend. U.S. State Department and AP
Afghan militia strategy revives hostility and conflicts of 1990s crisis civil war
Afghanistan’s increasing instability as American troops withdraw is causing the government in Kabul to change strategies. It is increasingly clear that the Afghan army is not able to prevent attacks by insurgents.
As a result, Kabul is reviving the conflicts of the extremely bloody Afghanistan generational crisis civil war, fought between 1991 and 1996. That war was fought mainly between the Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan.
Today’s Taliban terrorists are radicalized Pashtuns. And so, in northern Afghanistan, the Kabul government is calling on militias from the old Northern Alliance to come forward and fight their old Pashtun foes. The effort is expected to mobilize thousands of Afghans from the Northern Alliance to fight against the Pashtun Taliban.
Some analysts are concerned that this will trigger a new major civil war. But Afghanistan is in a generational Awakening era, so a new crisis civil war is impossible. The 1990s civil war was extremely bloody and genocidal, and there are several generations of survivors of that war who are still alive and will prevent anything like it from happening again.
However, that does not mean that reviving the Northern Alliance will bring peace. It will bring the usual post-civil war template of periods of conflict alternating with periods of peace. Each period of conflict will be worse than the previous one, and each will end with some peace agreement that will bring peace for a few years. That is what almost always happen in any country after a civil war. The alternating periods of conflict and peace continue for decades, until finally all the survivors of the preceding crisis civil war are gone, and then a new bloody genocidal crisis civil war breaks out again. Hindustan Times and International Business Times
Hackers obtain IRS tax filings for 104,000 taxpayers
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that hackers obtained the tax returns of approximately 104,000 taxpayers. The hackers apparently used names and social security numbers that had been obtained from previous hacks. They used that information in the IRS “Get Transcript” application to get entire transcripts of previous tax return filings.
Once the hackers obtain a taxpayer’s tax filings, they can use it to apply for fraudulent incomes, in addition to using the information from the tax filing to defraud the taxpayer.
The IRS believes that the hacking began some time in February, though they didn’t notice it until mid-May.
The IRS has been repeatedly warned by experts that its data security systems are inadequate. Accounting Today and AP
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Afghanistan, State Dept., Pashtun, Taliban, Northern Alliance, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Internal Review Service, IRS
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