US orders staffers out of Kabul embassy as military steps up exit
WASHINGTON — The State Department on Tuesday ordered a significant number of its remaining staff at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to leave Afghanistan as the military steps up the pullout of American troops from the country. The order came as the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan told lawmakers that it no longer made sense to continue the 20-year deployment of American troops there.
The department said it had instructed all personnel to depart unless their jobs require them to be physically located in Afghanistan. The order was not specific as to the number of people affected, but it went well beyond the usual curtailment of staffers for security and safety reasons. Such orders normally apply only to nonessential personnel.
In an updated travel advisory for Afghanistan, the department said it had ordered the departure of all U.S. government employees “whose functions can be performed elsewhere.” It also said American citizens should not travel to Afghanistan and those there who want to depart “should leave as soon as possible on available commercial flights.”
The embassy in Kabul is heavily dependent on the U.S. military for security, and staff drawdowns had been underway since the Trump administration had announced last year that American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by May 1.
The Biden administration extended that deadline until Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, but has accelerated the pullout.
The top U.S. diplomat in Kabul said the departure order was issued “due to increasing violence and threat reports,” would affect only a relatively small number of employees, and there would be no reduction in services offered. Charge d’affaires Ross Wilson said it “ensures that American diplomacy and support for Afghanistan will be sustainable, robust and effective.”
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of the U.S. Central Command, said Tuesday that the administration remains committed to keeping a functioning embassy in Kabul. “It is our intention to maintain an embassy in Afghanistan going forward. But we’ll have a very, very minimal military presence there — that which is strictly necessary to defend the embassy,” he said in remarks to the American Enterprise Institute.
Meds for opioid addiction: The Biden administration is easing decades-old requirements that made it difficult for doctors to treat opioid addiction using medication.
New guidelines announced Tuesday mean doctors and other health workers will no longer need extra hours of training to prescribe buprenorphine, a gold standard medicine that helps with cravings. And they no longer have to refer patients to counseling services.
Under the loosened guidelines, prescribers will be able to treat up to 30 patients at a time with the drug. It comes in a pill or film that dissolves under the tongue. It costs about $100 a month. A common version of buprenorphine is Suboxone.
Because of how opioids act on the brain, people dependent on them get sick if they stop using. Withdrawal can feel like a bad flu with cramping, sweating, anxiety and sleeplessness. Cravings for the drug can be so intense that relapse is common.
Buprenorphine helps by moving a patient from powerful painkillers or an illicit opioid like heroin to a regular dose of a legal opioid-based medication.
Ex-cop convicted: A former police officer in Oklahoma has been convicted of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of his daughter’s boyfriend, but a federal jury acquitted him of first-degree murder.
The jury Monday found Shannon Kepler, 60, guilty of using and discharging a firearm in the second-degree murder of Jeremey Lake, acting U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson said in a statement. It also found him guilty on an assault charge for shooting and wounding Lake’s brother.
The former Tulsa officer faces a minimum of 10 years up to life in prison for murder and 10 years for assault. Under federal guidelines, the sentences cannot be served concurrently.
Testifying Friday, Kepler said he fired in self-defense because he thought Lake pointed a handgun at him. No gun was found at the scene.
Ex-cop appeals verdict: A panel of three Texas appeals court judges appeared skeptical Tuesday of arguments to overturn the conviction of a former Dallas police officer who was sentenced to prison for fatally shooting her neighbor in his home.
An attorney for Amber Guyger clashed with a Dallas County prosecutor over whether the evidence was sufficient to prove that her 2018 shooting of Botham Jean was murder.
The hearing examined a Dallas County jury’s 2019 decision to sentence Guyger to 10 years in prison for murder. It follows the recent conviction of a former Minneapolis police officer who was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, again focusing national attention on police killings and racial injustice.
Guyger, 32, did not appear in court Tuesday and the panel seemed to doubt the arguments presented by her lawyer. The judges will hand down a decision at an unspecified later date.
Chad protest violence: Thousands protested and two people were killed in Chad on Tuesday in demonstrations against the rule of a transitional military council headed by the son of the late President Idriss Deby Itno, who died last week.
Those killed in violence surrounding the protests include a man shot dead in Moundou, in southern Chad, and another person who died in the capital, according to local reports.
The opposition coalition called for the demonstrations despite a ban on protests. Police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, and there were also demonstrations in other parts of the nation.
2 reporters, activist killed: Two Spanish journalists and the Irish director of a wildlife foundation were killed Monday in an ambush in eastern Burkina Faso, the Spanish government and officials in the African country said Tuesday.
The two journalists were working with the wildlife campaigner on a documentary about poachers in a national park bordering Benin when they were attacked by gunmen, Spain’s Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said Tuesday in Madrid.
The Spanish journalists were David Beriain, 44, and Roberto Fraile, 47, both from northern Spain, said members of the Reporters Without Borders organization representing the two reporters’ families.
The company identified the Irish victim as Rory Young, director of the Chengeta Wildlife Foundation.