Pentagon plans to bomb Taliban if Kabul attacked Drug kingpin’s wife pleads guilty to federal charges
Defence chiefs are drawing up plans to bomb Taliban targets if the militant group threatens to seize Kabul after US troops withdraw from Afghanistan, officials said.
The move is one option being assessed by the Pentagon as part of the future strategy for protecting the Afghan government after all American soldiers are pulled out by the end of next month.
The Taliban have already made advances as US and coalition troops have begun leaving, and the Pentagon is concerned their next step will be to target Afghanistan’s major cities and finally move on Kabul.
An imminent fall of Kabul is seen as the most likely development to lead to US military intervention, sources told The New York Times. However, officially, the Pentagon backed off any suggestion of bombing the Taliban at some future date. ‘‘The president has been clear: the mission our troops had been sent to achieve in Afghanistan has been accomplished,’’ John Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said. ‘‘The terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan has been greatly diminished.
‘‘We will now focus on ensuring that no additional threats to our homeland can emerge from that country.’’
US military sources said that airstrikes from a Gulf state or from a carrier in the Arabian Sea would have limited time to pinpoint and then target Taliban positions before needing to return to their bases.
Throughout 20 years in Afghanistan, the Us-led coalition had the use of Bagram, Kandahar and Shindand air bases to launch attacks.
The CIA and US special forces also had a base in Jalalabad to mount Reaper drone attacks.
The beauty queen bride of notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin ‘‘El Chapo’’ Guzman pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges yesterday and admitted to helping run her husband’s global cartel.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering in DC federal court nearly four months after she was arrested trying to board a plane at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
‘‘She’s happy to put this behind her and get on with her life and get back to her children,’’ Coronel’s attorney Jeffrey Lichtman told the New York Daily News.
Lichtman described the plea as ‘‘arm’s length’’ and said Coronel is looking at significantly less time in prison than her drug lord husband – who she married at 18 – as it’s her first offence.
Coronel’s attorneys, Lichtman and Mariel Colon Miro, were both on El Chapo’s defence team at his 2018 trial in Brooklyn.
Coronel pleaded guilty to to conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and meth to be imported into the US between 2012 and 2014, conspiring to launder her husband’s cartel proceeds, and other related charges.
The conviction is the first for Coronel, a California-born dual Mexican citizen who has maintained close proximity to some of the world’s most prolific drug traffickers since birth.
Ines Coronel Barreras, her father, was a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel and was sentenced to 10 years in a Mexican prison in 2017 on marijuana trafficking and firearms charges.
Her uncle, Ignacio ‘‘Nacho’’ Coronel, was also a top Sinaloa lieutenant who did business with Guzma´n.
The Mexican Army killed him during a shootout in 2010.
Coronel, who faces a minimum of 10 years when she is sentenced, is in protective custody in federal lockup and may only leave her cell two times a day, Lichtman said.
Her situation is not all that different to Guzman’s at ADX Florence in Colorado – a supermax prison architecturally designed in such a way that inmates will never see trees or terrain again.
Coronel was a permanent fixture at her husband’s Brooklyn trial, though the pair haven’t spoken since his extradition to the US in 2017.
The judge overseeing his case would not permit them an embrace in the courtroom despite dozens of motions from his legal team. During one day of the trial, they each turned up in matching velvet jackets.
El Chapo was convicted of more than a dozen felony charges on February 12, 2019, including money laundering, conspiracy, firearms and international drug trafficking. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered to forfeit $12.6 billion. – TNS