General Milley Says China is not an Enemy

It was 2017 when General Milley said China is not an enemy.

Well let’s go back to some facts shall we?

Has General Milley even met FBI Director Chris Wray?

The counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts emanating from the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party are a grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.

The Chinese government is employing tactics that seek to influence lawmakers and public opinion to achieve policies that are more favorable to China.

At the same time, the Chinese government is seeking to become the world’s greatest superpower through predatory lending and business practices, systematic theft of intellectual property, and brazen cyber intrusions.

China’s efforts target businesses, academic institutions, researchers, lawmakers, and the general public and will require a whole-of-society response. The government and the private sector must commit to working together to better understand and counter the threat.

Then, the New York Times publishes an article on April 13, 2021 titled: ‘China Poses Biggest threat to U.S., Intelligence Report Says’

Sure, it is several years later but and after Milley says he has known his CCP counterpart for 5 years…there is this –>May be an image of text that says 'Milley reportedly made the calls before the 2020 presidential election on Oct. 30, 2020, and two days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, on Jan. 8, 2021, and assured Zuocheng of the stability of the American government. He also allegedly assured the Chinese general that he would contact him regarding any imminent attack from the U.S. in the waning days of Trump's presidency.'

and this –>

May be an image of text that says 'Four #ChineseWarships, including a Chinese destroyer, have sailed into the United States' exclusive economic zone. Chinese state-run media says this is a warning to the United State about China's naval capabilities.'

The Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community published on April 9, 2021 is here in full. 

The 112th Congress held a hearing (House Foreign Affairs Committee) on May 28, 2012 titled: Investigating the Chinese Threat, Part I: Military and Economic Aggression. 

How about APT 40 (Advanced Persistent Threat) published by CISA? Can we really safeguard our trade secrets, intellectual property and infrastructure from the Chinese cyber war? Did General Milley discuss any of this in any other phone calls with his Chinese Communist Party counterpart?

China hacked Microsoft. Chinese hacking goes back several years. How about NASA, the World Bank, the State Department (East Asia Division), the Commerce Department, the Naval War College or the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter program?

Remember when President Obama removed all CIA operatives from China? That was because the Chinese military was killing our operatives in country. How did they know?

CHINA USED STOLEN DATA TO EXPOSE CIA OPERATIVES IN AFRICA AND EUROPE
The discovery of U.S. spy networks in China fueled a decadelong global war over data between Beijing and Washington. 

Around 2013, U.S. intelligence began noticing an alarming pattern: Undercover CIA personnel, flying into countries in Africa and Europe for sensitive work, were being rapidly and successfully identified by Chinese intelligence, according to three former U.S. officials. The surveillance by Chinese operatives began in some cases as soon as the CIA officers had cleared passport control. Sometimes, the surveillance was so overt that U.S. intelligence officials speculated that the Chinese wanted the U.S. side to know they had identified the CIA operatives, disrupting their missions; other times, however, it was much more subtle and only detected through U.S. spy agencies’ own sophisticated technical countersurveillance capabilities.

In part:

More than a thousand visiting researchers from China working at US universities have left the country since the summer, according to John Demers, chief of the Department of Justice’s national security division. This exodus comes as the Department of Justice has intensified its investigations of espionage by scientists at US institutions who are secretly affiliated with the Chinese government or military.

This summer, the Department of Justice has had at least five researchers from China arrested. They all had US visas but hadn’t disclosed their affiliations with the Chinese Communist party or military in their visa applications, Demers explained at a 2 December virtual summit of the Aspen Institute, a global non-profit think tank based in Washington DC. Those handful of arrests were ‘just the tip of the iceberg’, Demers stated.

‘Between those five or six arrests, and the dozens of interviews that the [FBI]  did with individuals who were here under similar circumstances … more than 1000 [People’s Liberation Army]-affiliated Chinese researchers left the country,’ he claimed.

It appears that those departures were in addition to about a thousand Chinese graduate and postgraduate students whose visas were revoked by the State Department back in September under a ‘proclamation’ announced by outgoing President Trump. That directive prohibited individuals from studying or conducting research in the US if they were found to have links with the Chinese government or its military.

Bill Evanina, the US government’s top counterintelligence official, said at the summit that of the 1000-plus Chinese researchers who left the US he is ‘most concerned about the graduate-level students’. These researchers all came to the US ‘at the behest of the Chinese government and intelligence services’, and are going to particular universities to study specific fields that are expected to benefit China, he claimed.

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CHICAGO (WLS) — The spy case against a former U.S. Army reservist and student at Illinois Institute of Technology wasn’t a one-man espionage show, according to federal investigators.

Ji Chaoqun’s federal court appearance in Chicago on Thursday is routine, in an anything-but-normal case. Chaoqun is charged against the backdrop of a possibly wider Chinese scheme to siphon intelligence information overseas.

Chaoqun and a similarly-accused spyman in Cincinnati, Ohio, shared the same foreign connection according to authorities, what’s known in intelligence circles as a “handler.” That link is pointed out in federal court records examined by the I-Team.

Chinese national Chaoqun, 30, is charged with providing intelligence officials in China with background check information on eight American citizens including defense contractors, federal investigators say. He had arrived in Chicago in 2013 with a student visa to study electrical engineering at IIT on the South Side but since being arrested has been locked up at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop for allegedly violating America’s Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In the Cincinnati case, Yanjun Xu is being held on charges he tried to steal trade secrets from GE Aviation, the giant military contractor and manufacturer. Xu, 40, is accused of downloading GE Aviation records onto his personal laptop and then smuggling them on a flight to China. As part of the charged scheme, federal authorities said Xu had posed as a technology association official and invited a GE Aviation employee to travel to China for a presentation. Xu became the first suspected Chinese intelligence official ever extradited to the U.S. He was arrested in Belgium and is now being detained at the federal penitentiary in Milan, Michigan.

So, what’s the connection between Cincinnati’s Xu and Chicago’s Chaoqun? While there is no indication the men were actual associates, commiserated in crime, or even ever met, the alleged link is buried in a Chicago court file.

Chaoqun’s criminal complaint cites a “clandestine and overt human source collection” used by Chinese officials to recruit spies and gather stolen intelligence.

“Chinese intelligence services conduct extensive overt, covert, and clandestine intelligence collection operations against U.S. national security entities, including private U.S. defense companies, through a network of agents within and outside of China,” states FBI Special Agent Andrew K. McKay.

According to the FBI, Chaoqun and Xu shared the very same covert, Chinese handler. U.S. authorities say the Chinese man assigned to secretly oversee both assignments, met with each alleged operative separately. They would get together in secret locations, frequently hotel rooms, but for the same alleged purpose: provide “information as a benefit to the Chinese government.”

Did General Milley discuss of of this with Li Zuocheng? Remember it is said that China was a little rattled at the potential instability of the United States and needed hand holding before and after the election of 2020 and the January 6 chaos in Washington DC. Seems, we Americans need hand holding from the woke Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pelosi.

Calls are routine? But the subject matter is hardly routine much less loyal to the homeland and the Constitution. Joint Chiefs spokesperson confirms Milley calls with China, defends them as routine Greg Nash

Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Col. Dave Butler on Wednesday confirmed that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley called his Chinese counterparts after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol but said those calls were routine.

Butler said in a statement that Milley “regular communicates with Chiefs of Defense around the world, including China and Russia. These conversations remain vital to improving mutual understanding of U.S. national security interests, reducing tensions, providing clarity and avoiding unintended consequences or conflict.”

The statement comes in response to reports that a forthcoming book says Milley once told his Chinese counterpart that he would give a heads up before any attack on China by the U.S.

“You and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise,” Milley said, according to an excerpt from a new book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward and The Washington Post’s Robert Costa.

“All calls from the Chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency,” Butler said in Wednesday’s statement.

 

 

Was it Eco-Health, NIH or Wuhan and the Money that Killed so Many?

The US-based, non-profit research group EcoHealth Alliance in 2014 received a US$3.1 million, five-year NIH grant to understand the risk of a novel bat virus spilling into humans in China, as had happened in the Sars outbreak in 2002.

“It would have been irresponsible of us if we did not investigate the bat viruses and the serology to see who might have been infected in China,” Fauci, whose institute was responsible for the grant, testified at a congressional hearing in May.

Research was undertaken in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, with a budget of between US$120,000 and US$150,000 a year under the grant, according to documents released by The Intercept.

Part of the work included exploring whether newly discovered bat viruses had the potential to infect people, and it is this aspect of the research which has come under scrutiny.

Wei Jingsheng, in a new report about his upcoming book called “What happened in Wuhan,” stated that he first heard about the Coronavirus at the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019. source

Chinese defector Wei Jingsheng tried to warn US officials.

source

Alerted by the news, he returned to the US and notified the CIA and FBI about what he had heard. The Agencies already knew him because he defected to the United States back in 1997 after leaving the Chinese communist party. Mr. Jingsheng said that he also alerted US politicians with connections to Trump and then alerted the Chinese human rights activist Dimon Liu.

Mr. Wei said that he found out more about the virus from one of his contacts in Beijing. He also noted that through Chinese activist Dimon Liu he spoke to politicians in the house about the dangers of the outbreak and that he also expressed his concerns to people in the Trump white house in 2019.
Wei said he would not reveal what politicians with ties to Trump he spoke with but states that the politicians could have reached the President immediately.

Chinese Human rights activist Demon Liu revealed that Mr. Lei told her about the virus at a dinner with her husband, a retired CIA agent, on November 22, 2019.
Liu said in a statement, “I couldn’t quite believe what he was saying,” Liu went on to say. “At that time, I had thought that the Coronavirus could not be worse than SARS. And SARS, as we knew from experience, was not that contagious, and it could be contained. I thought at the time that was the case. Okay, there was an outbreak, but the authorities and the advance of medical sciences would be able to contain the spread of it.”
Liu states that she wanted to pass the information that Mr. Wei gave her to Trump’s deputy National security advisor Matt Pottinger but decided against it because, as she puts it – “I didn’t send it to him because so many things were so incredulous,” she said. “I wrote it, but I didn’t send it because I decided it was better if Wei talks directly to Matt Pottinger.”

China hits back at Wuhan lab leak 'conspiracy' after Biden ...

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KEY POINTS

  •  27 scientist published a letter in The Lancet last March denouncing lab-leak theories.
  • 26 of the 27 scientists have ties to Wuhan Institute funders or researchers.
  • Lead scientist says letter was written for “our collaborators” in China for a “show of support.”

In March of last year, 27 scientists wrote a letter to medical journal The Lancet denouncing claims that COVID-19 could have originated in a lab. It’s now been revealed that 26 of those 27 scientists have ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology – that’s what we call a conflict of interest.

In The Lancet letter, the scientists stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.” But, according to the Daily Mail, “The orchestrator of the letter, British zoologist Peter Daszak, [had] a conflict of interest through him being president of the US-based EcoHealth Alliance, which has funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

Additionally, the Telegraph is reporting that a February 8th email released under an FOIA request reveals Mr. Daszak wrote The Lancet letter after being asked by “our collaborators” in China for a “show of support.”

That tanks Mr. Daszak’s credibility – and the other scientists don’t fare much better.

“Other signatories…include Prof Kanta Subbarao, who spoke at a conference in Wuhan – part organised by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Dr John Mackenzie, of Curtin University of Technology in Australia, [also] put his name to the letter, but failed to mention he was still listed as a committee member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” the Telegraph reports.

The list goes on and on until…

“Dr Ronald Corley, a microbiology expert from Boston University – has been found to have no links back to funders or researchers at the Wuhan institute,” according to the Daily Mail.

When all is said and done, 26 of the 27 Lancet letter scientists have ties to funders or researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Even members of the scientific community don’t believe Daszak & Co. wrote the article in good faith.

“I was a little perplexed and a little bit upset with five very good scientists, some of whom I know well, who I thought stepped way out beyond what they should have been saying, based on the data available to all of us,” said David Welman, a professor who advises the U.S. government on biological threats and risks.

“These were not scientific papers, they did not present scientific evidence, they did not analyse and support scientific data, they were presenting opinion, they did not belong in scientific journals,” said Richard Ebrigh, chemistry professor at Rutgers University.

Since its publishing, the Lancet letter has been instrumental in slapping down lab-leak “conspiracy theorists.” Now, it won’t be so easy.

Deputy CIA Director Says Here Comes al Qaeda Again

Leaving Afghanistan and abandoning Bagram Air Base immediately created a terror state. Did anyone contemplate that?

Meanwhile, the Taliban has named Mohammad Hassan Akhund, a longtime ally of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, to serve as the country’s acting prime minister. Akhund, who was the Taliban’s foreign minister before the U.S. invasion in 2001, told the United Nations in 1999 that “we will never give up Osama [bin Laden] at any price.”Hibatullah Akhundzada, considered the “emir” of Afghanistan by the Taliban, is a strong al Qaeda ally and proud father of a suicide bomber known as the “commander of the faithful.” Current al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri reportedly swore allegiance to him as the “emir of the believers” in 2016.

Al Qaeda could reconstitute in Afghanistan and regain the capability to threaten the U.S. in “one to two” years, intelligence chiefs said Tuesday, revising downward estimates that were previously issued by the Pentagon.

source

“The current assessment, probably conservatively, is one to two years for al Qaeda to build some capability to at least threaten the homeland,” said Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), at an annual summit hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, with panels moderated by CBS News.

“That said, DIA is not going to take…their eye off the ball of terrorism,” Berrier said.

CIA deputy director David Cohen said at the same event that the agency was keeping “a very keen watch” on the terror network’s activities in Afghanistan, adding there is evidence its militants are returning to the country.

“[W]e are already beginning to see some of the indications of some potential movement of al Qaeda to Afghanistan,” Cohen said, “but it’s early days, and we will obviously keep a very close eye on that.”

The Taliban, who seized control of Afghanistan in a stunningly rapid takeover last month, are known to have maintained close ties with al Qaeda and are suspected by analysts of harboring senior operatives.

Both U.S. officials said Tuesday that intelligence agencies were working on ways to continue intelligence collection without a troop presence or embassy in the country, acknowledging current capabilities had been meaningfully reduced by the U.S. withdrawal. Lawmakers, counterterrorism experts and former intelligence officials have expressed concern over how reliable so-called over-the-horizon capabilities can be without networks of informants to guide them.

“We’re thinking about ways how to gain access back into Afghanistan with all kinds of sources,” Berrier said. “We are prioritizing that effort.”

Cohen said the agency would seek to maintain a network of intelligence assets within Afghanistan, but that operating from a distance and absent a physical presence was not a “new” challenge for the intelligence community.

“As we work from over the horizon principally…we will also look for ways to work from within the horizon, to the extent that is possible,” Cohen said. “But we will approach this in the way that we have approached the counterterrorism mission in many places around the world for a number of years, and I think, as a community, we continue to get better and better at doing that.”

Speaking at the summit on Monday, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Afghanistan did not currently top the list of international terror threats, saying the “greatest threat” came from militant groups operating in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria.

The U.S. has Frozen $9.5 Billion in Assets Belonging to Afghanistan Central Bank

The U.S. has frozen nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank and stopped shipments of cash to the nation as it tries to keep a Taliban-led government from accessing the money, an administration official confirmed Tuesday.This amounts to roughly one-third of the country’s annual economic output. International aid flows represented roughly 43 percent of Afghanistan’s economy in 2020, according to the World Bank.Afghanistan Economy: Hard to recover - CGTN

The official said that any central bank assets that the Afghan government has in the U.S. will not be available to the Taliban, which remains on the Treasury Department’s sanctions designation list. Additionally, as the Taliban began their march through Afghanistan, the Biden administration cancelled a planned shipment of physical dollars due to be delivered to the country and directed the International Monetary Fund to renege on its long-planned release of funds to Afghanistan. More detail and context here. 

The United States’ principal competitors in Beijing and Moscow see a potential opening with the U.S. departure. While there is little thought that China or Russia are interested in aiding Afghanistan’s development – instead seeing the country as both a playground for great power influence and, on the part of Beijing, a mercantilist maneuver critical to clinching its Belt-and-Road initiative in South Asia – it is possible that China and Russia can actually leverage U.S. sanctions and the restrictions major financial institutions will face in dealing with Afghanistan to empower the Taliban and their own interests. The Taliban meanwhile may welcome China and Russia filling the void of western finance and aid while also taking advantage of the departure of U.S. restrictions on poppy production to return to state controlled narcotics sales, furthering enriching themselves while continuing to impoverish the Afghan people.

Beyond the reserves, the United States also sends roughly $3 billion per year in support for the Afghan military, or roughly 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The funding can only be spent if the secretary of defense “certifies to Congress that the Afghan forces are controlled by a civilian, representative government that is committed to protecting human rights and women’s rights,” according to a congressional summary of the legislation. This funding is expected to stop flowing as well, along with smaller pots of money, such as $20 million for recruiting women to the Afghan national security forces.

About 80 percent of Afghanistan’s budget is funded by the United States and other international donors, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told Reuters in the spring. A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget declined to comment on the status of congressionally approved funding for Afghanistan. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a news conference Tuesday that NATO has suspended aid to the Afghan government as well. “We have of course suspended all support, financial and other kinds of support, to the Afghan government, because there is no Afghan government for NATO to support,” Stoltenberg said. “No money is transferred; no support is provided.” More context here. 

Meanwhile, China, Pakistan, Iran and Russia will keep their embassies in Kabul open and functional while most other nations have shuttered and evacuated their embassy operations. China is making financial moves to support the Taliban while doing the same to takeover the now former US air base in Bagram.

The UN Secretary General held a half day conference seeking to raise the $606 million which humanitarian agencies say is urgently needed to provide life-saving aid to millions of Afghans over the four final months of the year.

Among other things, the money is needed for critical food and livelihood assistance for nearly 11 million people and essential health services for 3.4 million.

‘Starvation’

Guterres stressed that Afghans were experiencing “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world” even before the Taliban takeover on August 15.

Some 40 percent of the country’s GDP was already drawn from foreign funding, and half of the population was already dependent on humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

Afghanistan is also facing a devastating drought and mass displacement in addition to the impact of Covid-19.

Fears now abound that other countries’ reluctance to deal with the Taliban could push Afghanistan over the edge.

Guterres announced that the UN would release $20 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund to support the humanitarian operation in Afghanistan.

Under the leadership of acting central bank governor, Haji Mohammad Idris, a Taliban loyalist who has no formal financial training, the central bank has been moving to restrict dollar outflows amid a pause in foreign aid and a scramble by some Afghanis to get savings out of the country.

Further controls are expected to hasten the afghani’s depreciation against the dollar, exacerbating inflation in a country where more than a third of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

“It’s a matter of concern that the remaining physical cash of U.S. dollars is going to reduce further,” said an Afghani banker. “With the restrictions we are predicting the dollar will reach more than 100 afghanis to the dollar.”

Less than a Dozen Countries Accepting Afghan Refugees

Primer:

Treaties and other international agreements are written agreements between sovereign states (or between states and international organizations) governed by international law.  The United States enters into more than 200 treaties and other international agreements each year.

The subjects of treaties span the whole spectrum of international relations: peace, trade, defense, territorial boundaries, human rights, law enforcement, environmental matters, and many others. As times change, so do treaties. In 1796, the United States entered into the Treaty with Tripoli to protect American citizens from kidnapping and ransom by pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2001, the United States agreed to a treaty on cybercrime.

Read more about what specific bureaus are doing to support this policy issue:

Office of Treaty Affairs (L/T): The Office of the Assistant Legal Adviser for Treaty Affairs, within the Office of the Legal Adviser, provides guidance on all aspects of U.S. and international treaty law and practice. It manages the process under which the Department of State approves the negotiation and conclusion of all international agreements to which the U.S. will become a party. It also coordinates with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on issues involving the Senate’s advice and consent to ratification of treaties. Read more about the Office of Treaty Affairs

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To date, the U.S. State Department has no secured refugee agreements with a permanent status as a result of the Afghanistan refugee crisis. Some countries are cooperating only on a temporary basis while conditions and vetting has been satisfied. This now forces the United States to essentially accept the high majority of the refugees which could exceed perhaps as many as 1.0 million. Today, several of our military bases across the globe and those inside the United States have become refugee camps with no end in sight.

Anyone remember the Syrian refugees and the continuing crisis throughout Europe? Even Germany is deporting Syrian refugees.

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As of August 31, 2021 via Newsweek

U.S.

Afghans who aided the U.S. war effort can be eligible for special immigrant visas, but those who don’t qualify can look to resettle in the U.S. in other ways.

Earlier this summer, the Biden administration expanded its Afghan refugee program and created a new category for those who worked with U.S.-based news outlets or nongovernmental organizations.

As many as 50,000 Afghans could also arrive in the country on “humanitarian parole,” an immigration tool that allows people to enter the country without visas for urgent humanitarian reasons.

The Biden administration has not announced exactly how many Afghan refugees will be taken in by the U.S., but has committed to resettling up to 125,000 refuges in the 2022 fiscal year.

U.K.

Earlier this month, the U.K. government announced plans to welcome 5,000 Afghan refugees this year and resettle a total of 20,000 Afghans in the coming years.

The Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme would prioritize women and girls as well as religious and other minorities who are at most risk from the Taliban, the government said.

 

Afghan refugees in Manchester
People believed to have recently arrived from Afghanistan stand in the courtyard of a hotel near Manchester Airport on August 25, 2021 in Manchester, England.CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGES

Canada

Canada has said that it will take in 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan, focusing on those in danger from the Taliban, including government workers and women leaders.

The country’s Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino has said Canada would consider taking in additional refugees on behalf of the U.S. or other allies, if asked.

Mexico

Mexico welcomed a group of 124 Afghan media workers and their families on Wednesday.

The country had accepted its first group of refugees from Afghanistan on Tuesday, when five women and one man arrived in Mexico City, according to the Associated Press.

Mexico’s interior secretary, Olga Sánchez Cordero, said Wednesday that Mexico would grant asylum “to those Afghan citizens who require it.”

Germany

Germany has indicated that some Afghan refugees will be accepted, but numbers have not been specified.

Chancellor Angela Merkel faced criticism after Germany opened its borders to over a million migrants, mostly Syrians and Iraqis, six years ago.

After the Taliban takeover, Merkel said her government was focused on ensuring Afghan refugees “have a secure stay in countries neighbouring Afghanistan.”

France

In a televised address after the Taliban takeover, President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must protect itself from a wave of Afghan migrants.

He said France would “protect those who are in the most danger” but added that Europe “cannot take on the consequences from the current situation alone.”

Pakistan

Most Afghan refugees cross over the border into neighboring Pakistan.

In June, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan told The New York Times that the country would seal its border if the Taliban took control as it did not want another wave of refugees from Afghanistan.

The country was already struggling to cope with the estimated three million Afghan refugees already in Pakistan, he said.

Tajikistan

In July, Tajikistan said it was preparing to accept up to 100,000 refugees from its neighboring country.

Uganda

Uganda said it had agreed to a request from the U.S. to temporarily take in 2,000 refugees from Afghanistan. The African nation currently hosts about 1.4 million refugees.

Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo

Albania and North Macedonia have also accepted a U.S. request to temporarily take in Afghan refugees, accepting 300 and 450 refugees respectively. Kosovo has also agreed to temporarily host refugees headed for the U.S., but numbers have not been specified.

Switzerland

The Swiss government has said it will not accept large groups of refugees arriving directly from Afghanistan.

Austria

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has ruled out taking in any more Afghan refugees. In a recent interview, Kurz said Austria had accepted 40,000 Afghans in the past few years, which he described as a “disproportionately large contribution.”

Afghan people climb atop plane
Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war.WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Turkey

Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees out of any country in the world, but has been ramping up construction of a border wall to keep further influxes of migrants out.

There are 182,000 registered Afghan migrants in Turkey and up to an estimated 120,000 unregistered ones, according to Reuters.

But the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged other European countries to take responsibility for those fleeing Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, saying Turkey had no intention of becoming “Europe’s migrant storage unit.”

Iran

Iran already hosts 780,000 Afghans refugees, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Emergency tents for refugees were set up in three Iranian provinces which border Afghanistan.

However, Hossein Ghassemi, the country’s interior ministry border affairs chief, has said that any Afghans who have crossed into Iran would be repatriated once conditions improve.

Russia

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will not accept Afghan refugees because he does not want militants entering the country disguised as refugees.

“We don’t want militants under the disguise of refugees to appear here [in Russia] again,” he said Sunday, according to the TASS news agency.

“We will do everything, in particular in contact with our Western partners, to ensure stability in Afghanistan as well. But we do not want a repeat of the situation of the 1990s and early 2000s.”

Australia

Australia has pledged to take in 3,000 Afghan refugees within an existing annual allocation of its humanitarian visa program. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indicated the number could be increased, referring to it as “a floor, not a ceiling.”

Meanwhile, the country has also begun a campaign to deter Afghan refuges from trying to reach Australia by boat.

“Australia’s strong border protection policies have not and will not change,” Karen Andrews, Australia’s minister for home affairs, said in a video posted on YouTube Monday.

“No one who arrives in Australia illegally by boat will ever settle here. Do not attempt an illegal boat journey to Australia. You have zero chance of success.”