Ayman al-Zawahiri: The First High-Dimensional Leader of the Taliban, Ivor Shearer, and the Afghan Fund

Top Biden administration officials met in-person with the Taliban on Saturday for the first time since al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by the US in his apartment in Kabul in late July, two officials familiar with the talks said.

The Taliban would not harbor terrorists if US forces left Afghanistan, according to the Trump administration, which brokered the agreement after Zawahiri was killed in a strike.

After a US drone fired fatal Hellfire missiles at Zawahiri, American officials accused Taliban leaders from the Haqqani network of knowing about Zawahiri’s whereabouts while the Taliban angrily condemned the operation.

If we find evidence that al Qaeda members in Afghanistan are supporting operations that threaten the US or our allies, Cohen is expected to deliver a firm message that more strikes will be carried out, Sanner said. The Taliban is facing an internal Afghan threat due to the focus of the terrorists on killing Shias, and there is a concern that if the Taliban is unable to contain them, they will turn their attention to external plots.

The man who has been held in captivity for two years was freed almost three weeks ago. Administration officials said they said spent months negotiating with the Taliban for his release and had warned the Taliban after the strike about harming Frerichs. The best way to rebuild trust, they said they told the Taliban, would be to release him.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says that Ivor Shearer is being held by the Taliban after being arrested with his producer while filming in the vicinity of Zawahiri’s death. Shearer had reportedly been summoned several times by the Taliban for questioning before his detention.

Beth Sanner, a former deputy director of National intelligence who led Afghanistan analysis at the CIA, says that the Taliban are struggling to prevent the attacks. Sanner is also a CNN contributor.

The Afghan Fund was set up by the Biden administration last month to promote economic stability. The US does not believe that a trusted institution will guarantee that the Afghan people will benefit from the funds, two officials told CNN.

Administration officials have raised the issue of women and girls in their conversations with the Taliban. The UN human rights expert in Afghanistan said that there was a huge regression of women and girls in Afghan society.

“In no other country have women and girls so rapidly disappeared from all spheres of public life,” Bennett said. Women and girls are still at the forefront of calls for accountability despite this.

U.S. maritime awareness and human rights concerns in the 21st century: a roadmap for building a free and open region from Biden’s presidency

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which Biden has participated in as a president, is at the core of his administration’s strategy to build a region that is both free and open.

While in East Asia, Biden will have a three-way meeting with leaders from South Korea and Japan before he heads to the G-20 summit in Indonesia.

Freedom of navigation refers to a dispute involving the South China Sea, where the United States says it can sail and fly wherever international law allows and China believes such missions are destabilizing. Sullivan said the U.S. can play a role as a stabilizing force in the region and as a deterrent to any nation engaging in threatening intimidation and coercive action against other nations in the region.

Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One there is a demand signal for that. Referring to the People’s Republic of China, Sullivan continued: “I think the PRC may not love that fact, but they certainly acknowledge it and understand it.”

One new initiative related to those efforts that Biden will discuss Saturday focuses on maritime awareness, specifically using radio frequencies from commercial satellites to better track dark shipping and illegal fishing, Sullivan said.

Biden also raised human rights concerns in Cambodia. In a statement after the meeting with Hun Sen, the White House said Biden urged the prime minister — an authoritarian ruler in a nominally democratic nation — to “reopen civic and political space” before its 2023 elections.

This year, the U.S. is being elevated to a Comprehensive strategic partnership by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a designation which puts the United States in the same league as China.

Another topic Biden focused on is Myanmar, where the military junta overthrew the ruling government in February 2021 and arrested its democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. In his meeting with Hun Sen, Biden stressed that the U.S. was serious about the return of democracy inMyanmar, which had been overthrown by a military coup.

Biden, according to the White House, also pushed Hun Sen to release activists including Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer who was convicted of treason as the prime minister’s long-running rule aimed to crack down on his opposition. The White House said Biden also raised concerns about activities at Ream Naval Base, whose expansion Cambodian officials have described as a collaborative effort between it and China.

The Rise of “Colombia” for U.S. President Joe Biden in the 21 Months after the Asia-Pacific Summit

There was an empty chair at the U.S.-ASEAN summit where a representative from Vietnam would have sat had they not been barred from participating in official meetings.

In his brief remarks Saturday, Biden mistakenly identified host nation Cambodia as “Colombia,” a flub he also made on Thursday night as he was leaving the U.S.

President Joe Biden was happy with the election results and he was able to give him a boost at home in his second year in office.

A day after he arrived in Asia, he got another piece of news from back home that could give him a lift through the rest of his international swing – CNN and other outlets projected his party would retain control of the Senate.

Even though the votes are being counted, the scale of the challenges overseas and the effort to translate that 21 months into tangible results will put the value of political capital on the international stage.

“For years, our countries have been engaged in trilateral cooperation out of a shared concern for the nuclear and missile threat North Korea poses to our people,” Biden said at the start of three-way talks.

Biden’s stop at an Asian nations summit comes as advisers see a clear boost from bucking the historical and political trends in the midterm elections. After the American voter delivered a message that surpassed even the most optimistic White House officials, the weight behind Biden’s message is more robust than ever.

Joe Biden meets Egyptian President Abdel Fattatar El-Sisi in a high-energy air-borne test of North Korea

As aggression from North Korea will be considered by the leaders Sunday, it’s vital that they work together. According to a count by CNN, North Korea has launched missiles 32 times this year. In 2020 it conducted only four tests, and in 2021.

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser for the US, told reporters aboard Air Force One that the leaders would be able to discuss broader security issues, as well as the threats posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.

The official said the main topic of discussion this weekend is the conflict inMyanmar, a country that underwent a coup last year.

A discussion regarding the ongoing crisis inBurma and efforts to promote respect for human rights, rule of law and good governance will be had by world leaders.

On Friday, Biden went to Egypt and met with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattatar El- Sisi at the climate summit.

The time the two men have spent together in their company since 2012 is a fraction of the time they spent on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit. The relationship between the United States and China is the most important on the planet according to Joe Biden, who has claimed that he traveled 17,000 miles with the president and spent 70 hours with him.

Biden hopes coming face-to-face again after nearly two years communicating only by phone and video-conference can yield a more strategically valuable result, even if he enters the talks with little expectation they can produce anything concrete.

Relations have deteriorated due to economic disagreements and a stand-off over Taiwan. The tensions have led to a decline in cooperation on areas where the two countries once shared common interests, like combating climate change and containing North Korea’s nuclear program.

American officials didn’t think that getting Biden and Xi in the same room would resolve all of the issues. There was no desire for a joint statement to be released after.

After Beijing cut off most channels following Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in the summer, US and Chinese officials needed to establish lines of communication to arrange the meeting.

“Every matter associated with this meeting, from phone calls to logistics, has been very carefully considered, negotiated, and engaged between the two sides,” a senior US administration official said.

The official said that there were lots of areas where the discussions were not easy to talk about. “The dozens of hours we have spent talking to our Chinese counterparts has definitely surfaced many of those issues.”

Biden reads extensively before meetings like this and takes them very seriously. In meetings with advisers, he runs through various scenarios for how the meeting might go.

The first official said that he went through a process of if this happened, then should we handle it this way. “He understands that this is, in many respects, the most important bilateral relationship. And it’s his responsibility to manage it well He takes that very seriously.

Officials said in Monday’s meeting they expected Biden’s senior-most advisers to accompany him as part of his official delegation. And the said they expected Xi to similarly surround himself with top aides, though the US team entered the meeting expecting to see some new faces on the Chinese side amid an ongoing transition inside Xi’s inner circle.

Biden’s aides have not set a time limit for the meeting, though Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said he expected the talks to run “a couple hours” but could extend longer.

The White House uses the term “building a floor” to describe the goal of the talks, suggesting that the goal is to stop relations from falling further, as well as that Biden sees the potential for improvement.

“We just got to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things to each of us going into the next two years,” Biden told reporters Sunday in Cambodia, where he was attending summit meetings with Asian leaders before traveling to Bali.

Xi’s First Foreign Journey in the Predator of the Covid Epidemic: What he’s Expected From The White House

Since the start of the Covid epidemic, the Chinese government imposed strict lock downs and draconian restrictions on travel, which is why the trip toBali is Xi’s first foreign journey in almost a year. On the heels of China’s Communist Party Congress in Beijing, when he secured a third term as leader, his re-emergence on the physical world stage also comes.

Most inside of the White House were anticipating that Biden would enter the talks more than a week ago, despite the Democratic losses in the election. The president felt like he was entering his meetings this week with the wind at his back after the better-than- expected results for Democrats.

China’s pandemic-era isolation, US officials say, had made it relatively harder in recent years to get a read on Beijing’s intentions abroad as Xi declined to travel outside of China – but they believe that is all about to change.

“We can expect them to be more assertive on the world stage,” the senior administration said. It’s hard to know what that looks like right now.

Sullivan said this week that replacing the video calls with face-to-face meetings allow leaders to explore in detail what each wants and what their priorities are.