Afghanistan Intel Update: 25 August 2021

all right everyone welcome back to another intel update by the s2 underground uh this is the brief for the 25th of august uh this is being recorded actually at zero 100 eastern standard time on august 25th so things might change by the end of the day but i wanted to get this one out because a lot of the information that i just briefed in last brief has now changed so this is going to be a short brief but there's some important changes i just wanted to highlight so the first couple of bullet points are really ones that have not changed from last brief i just wanted to throw these in there again just to remind anyone who's tracking this or involved that the taliban is no longer allowing locals in really into anywhere uh if you're a local and you're trying to get towards the airport the taliban will stop you uh all foreign passport holders unless you're a coalition uh a coalition member of you know a non-native of afghanistan you're not going to be able to get to the airport unless you really try really hard and even then it's going to be very difficult to get through the gate also do not use the main gate everyone at this point is recommending to avoid the main gate go for the abbey e very difficult to get through the gate also do not use the main gate everyone at this point is recommending to avoid the main gate go for the abbey gate and north gate which i'll highlight on the map once again this is due to the taliban asserting their dominance at the main gate they're stopping everyone they're trying to clear the traffic around the main getting around airport road so it's still congested but it's almost like normal afghan traffic if there were like a bad accident or something so most of the traffic congestion i'll show you when we jump to the map really the biggest news to come out is the revelation the the public publication of the fact that the u.s is withdrawing at this time so it is unclear as to how many troops are actually withdrawing right now but it it looks like a lot of mainstream media is reporting that 5 000 us troops will remain 1 000 british troops will remain uh up until the the bitter end so to speak uh but it is unclear as to how many of what role and things like that so the reason that i mention this is because uh one it's kind of early the united states clearly is trying to do their best to not upset the taliban and get out of there with uh this is because uh one it's kind of early the united states clearly is trying to do their best to not upset the taliban and get out of there with uh with our tail between our legs as fast as possible even if that means leaving a lot of americans on the ground which i'll touch on here in a minute but the the main reason i mention this is because uh all obviously all of the afghans and the thousands of interpreters that are standing around waiting for an airplane watched the speech live watched biden speech live and the speech caused instant pandemonium at hkia and around the area so a lot of what i just briefed has changed particularly when it comes to traffic but another thing that has changed is that the taliban forces which have been being pulled from the kabul area kabul area and pushed forward into pan shear they've kind of reversed course a little bit taliban forces are being requested from other parts of the country from what we're seeing granted this is this is kind of like uh rument of the utmost variety it's all just kind of word of mouth but that's how intel works in afghanistan for the most part so the taliban are reinforcing the hkia region so that they can quickly tak word of mouth but that's how intel works in afghanistan for the most part so the taliban are reinforcing the hkia region so that they can quickly take the airport as as soon as the american aircraft is off the ground essentially so there's a lot more taliban on the streets and the situation has is getting a lot more tense as one might imagine you know moving forward into this we always knew this we always knew since the start of this whole thing that this was going to get tense at the final days and we're starting to get that now and finally uh pushing forward into the future just a little bit uh we're not entirely sure uh what the taliban's gonna do about the americans that are gonna be left on the ground um it's hard to predict the future and it is hard to predict even uh even the regime stating that they're going to leave by the 31st it's really hard to kind of believe that up until the point that it happens but our job is to predict things out and we're not really sure we're seeing a lot of talks pretty much since the deadline was dropped everybody instantly thought well what happens when we violate the deadline or what happens to the americans if we stick to the deadline and s dropped everybody instantly thought well what happens when we violate the deadline or what happens to the americans if we stick to the deadline and we just leave people behind what what what then and we don't really know it's not very clear from our side from a lot of side now of course i'm sure a lot more informed people actually in the know with the tactical level intelligence that's going on on the ground and the strategic stuff they probably know what's going to happen but we're not entirely certain we don't know if the taliban is going to stick to their word and say the americans will not be harmed or if they're going to do what we think they're going to do which is very bad stuff now let's just assume for a moment that the taliban sticks to their word and any american that's left in afghanistan after the united states military leaves and not just in kabul but the rest of the country let's just say for a second that the taliban honors their agreement and they're not going to be harmed by the taliban well they've still got to leave somehow so getting home is going to be an issue no matter what at this point whether or not it's on the at the hkai situation right now or if it's ave somehow so getting home is going to be an issue no matter what at this point whether or not it's on the at the hkai situation right now or if it's after this whole thing is said and done the people that are stuck out in the sticks in afghanistan that can't really get to the major areas uh what are they going to do so even if we're just talking about the h kaya area the the civilian airliners that are stuck on the tarmac there well the they're probably not going to be able to be functioned let's face it the any pilot that was on the ground flew their aircraft uh to uh uzbekistan and so they intercepted or they like either shot down or forcibly landed like 60 something aircraft just in the first on the first day of this thing so really any pilot that's left on the ground in afghanistan is is going to be a few and far between also we're talking maintenance here these aircraft have been sitting there for how many days now and they've been sitting there for a very long time even before this this whole thing kicked off so i mean they're probably not going to work uh and you know your maintenance personnel things like that your airport staff are the very first people on those first ai probably not going to work uh and you know your maintenance personnel things like that your airport staff are the very first people on those first aircraft to leave like i mean they're right there they saw the americans they were able to jump on board quickly i mean that would just make sense right from from a guest standpoint so we don't really know what the taliban's intentions are we'll come back to some of those options but i just wanted to plant that seed of everyone kind of thinking about what we're gonna do once the situation is is kind of over but it ain't over if you know what i mean so let's jump over to the map and talk about the situation on the ground a little bit all right so here on the map uh the main uh difference from last time is the traffic so like i mentioned i pointed out that there were a few different route open routes and some of these roads still are at least by social media and people posting things uh we're able to see that these roads are traversable the one the ones over here to the to the west part of the city to the down south but the really the biggest problem here are at the two main gates to get out so this stretch of highway this little stretch he city to the down south but the really the biggest problem here are at the two main gates to get out so this stretch of highway this little stretch of road from the main gate to way past the ecp for the hotel baron to somewhere right about here ish hard to say this is total gridlock along this red line here you can't get a car in there if you're trying to get a vehicle in there it's going to take forever foot traffic is also very very thick right there is where most people are masked so it's going to be very hard to get in at this point and then likewise on moving up to the north side the entirety of russian road from the city all the way out to the outskirts uh is complete gridlock all the way out past this intersection here this traffic circle this is all complete gridlock most of the people that are masked are masked right here and at the bridge entrance across the sewage canal into the the north gate there so that's unfortunate news and i just wanted to point that out because that's really critical for people getting out this situation changed very very quickly almost as soon as the video was uploaded we noticed and we had we got a lot of intel in that indicated that traffic tuation changed very very quickly almost as soon as the video was uploaded we noticed and we had we got a lot of intel in that indicated that traffic had instantly started back up again due to the uh the speech which was you know anytime you know the president gives a speech about uh something in in this nature it's going to to cause a lot of panic for people so that that's just going to happen and you know when you mention that hey we're drawing down troops well you know that just triggers this whole day one all over again and just a quick update on the northern alliance situation the fighting has gotten extremely extremely brutal and the the people that we might be getting our ocean from are are no longer able to post things on social media so uh that's uh leaves us in kind of the dark a little bit now we have seen districts trade back and forth a few different times but really the map is the same as it's been over the past couple of days so no main significant changes on this front but we're still watching it and finally i did just want to sort of mention again that we're starting to think about the future here about what we're going to do uh once this whole shooting match is ov want to sort of mention again that we're starting to think about the future here about what we're going to do uh once this whole shooting match is over but not really over if and in the extremely likely at this stage case that americans are still left somewhere in afghanistan if there's one american left we're going to try to figure out what to do not like we here at the s2 underground have a huge part in all this but i'm just pointing out that the collective we as in the thousands of other civilian oriented groups that are trying to help things are going to have to try to do something because the military at that point is going to be completely not even in theater so really there are really not a whole lot of options for getting out of afghanistan even in the best of times so assuming for the moment that aircraft options are not available civilian airliners are not able to fly out of the out of afghanistan really the main option for a lot of people is going to be pakistan pakistan has opened up a couple of checkpoints so down south uh pakistan has opened up one of their main checkpoints again the the chaman spin boldac crossing most people call it chaman crossing uh down south an uh pakistan has opened up one of their main checkpoints again the the chaman spin boldac crossing most people call it chaman crossing uh down south and the normal other checkpoints along the the eastern side of the country the the few different ways in and out of afghanistan along the pakistani border are going to be options for some people honestly not great options but we're talking at this point it's going to be a civilian version of seer so this is not exactly going to be ideal for anyone if you are an american on the ground and you've got that you know blue american passport it would probably be a very bad idea to head towards iran because you're probably not going to leave the country the other options that you have besides the distasteful options of iran and pakistan are turkmenistan uzbekistan tajikistan that's really pretty much all you've got some of the northern options are not going to be spectacular because the rugged terrain just makes it really hard to get up there it takes forever to move up north so if you're talking about a land border crossing up north man that's going to be rough i mean you can probably from herat push forward into turkmenistan but again we just about a land border crossing up north man that's going to be rough i mean you can probably from herat push forward into turkmenistan but again we just don't know how border crossings are going to work after the united states is gone and the taliban is officially the government of afghanistan uh pakistan will probably be the best option it just means spitballing here it's it's not a great option but you might have a better shot than any of the other places plus the roads go to pac to go to pakistan are a lot more traversable than some of the northern routes which just honestly are barely survivable on a normal day so we're thinking about this stuff uh we don't want to give away too much just in case other people are thinking about this too but we did want to throw this out there that hey we need to start thinking well we needed to have started thinking many many days ago once we did the math and figured out that it's not going to be possible to get all everyone out by the 31st of august but now we're having to think about these things now so this is just kind of a war no that this is be prepared for this kind of stuff to go down even if we are able to pull off some kind of miracle e now so this is just kind of a war no that this is be prepared for this kind of stuff to go down even if we are able to pull off some kind of miracle evacuation and get just the americans out that will be a feat that has never been done before and it's not looking super likely at this point but we shall see we shall persevere and we shall we shall definitely do all we can to get every single person out of afghanistan if we can't get them all well maybe we can get just one more that's the goal just to one more so that's uh really the update on that so for those of you that have are just tuning in now and you have not seen any of our previous briefings on this subject we have been doing these intel briefings for a few days now and we have a lot of products so check out the stuff in the description it's uh i think it's really handy or it can be really handy for a lot of different things and all of these different intel briefs have cover something different so uh or or really something that uh isn't present in any of the other briefs so i try to make these as diverse as possible while still talking about the current situation on the ground so hopefully that's helpful just wanted to poin try to make these as diverse as possible while still talking about the current situation on the ground so hopefully that's helpful just wanted to point that out there for anyone else who has not seen what we've been doing so far and here's this slide again we're trying to share this every single time just resources on screen for anyone who hasn't seen any of this information granted there's not a whole lot we can do but maybe this will help someone out so thank you everyone for sticking around we'll continue these briefings up until the very bitter end and then probably afterwards as well if we think they can do some good to get some people back home but yeah this is some really heavy stuff so thanks for everybody for sticking around it's it's not easy to talk about and there's really no way to sugarcoat this stuff or make it even a little bit less depressing than it is but we're going to try to move forward through this do the best we can and uh we'll we'll hang on that so thank you for stopping by thanks for watching this far and we will see you next time and always remember fight in the shade