Afghanistan Intel Update: 26/27 August 2021

Hello again everyone welcome back to the underground uh this is the briefing on the kabul situation uh for august 26th into the 27th so over the period of darkness uh this is being recorded at 1700 eastern standard time very kinetic activity today the the main update has been the several ied attacks on the abbey gate the baron hotel ecp and the north gate of hkia we're hearing as many as seven ieds have been detonated so far. But the situation is very very kinetic and it is changing literally faster than we can type here so we expect more ied attacks to continue throughout the night and into the morning these ied attacks have resulted in as of right now the numbers are 12 kia 11 marines and one corpsman and 15 others wounded this was confirmed about an hour ago by the centcom commander general kenneth mckenzie. Additionally it looks like u. S forces are currently in full extraction mode from hkia our assessment here based on what we've been seeing is that the united states will most likely be gone before the deadline is up with time to spare we're also seeing limited unconfirmed reports that u. S forces are currently welding the gates closed at hkia and not allowing anyone regardless of citizenship status through. Additionally on the diplomatic front it has become public knowledge as of the past 30 minutes or so that united states officials have given a list of names of american citizens and green card holders to the taliban which has prompted outrage from virtually every person we can see and allegedly by the u. S forces slash government in order to facilitate the taliban are letting americans through to the airport through the cordons and the checkpoints they had set up to stop locals as we can have plainly see this this did not work and now the taliban have a list of most american citizens so if you are an american citizen or green card holder who is currently stuck in kabul the taliban most likely knows exactly who you are this will most likely complicate the situation as the every minute that goes by the probability of a land egress uh to the pakistan border is becoming more and more likely for most people likewise pakistan has quietly been preparing for refugees for the over the past few hours they issued a statement to all of the hotels in islamabad in which they ordered them to stop taking reservations for people and to clear out their hotels as soon as possible for the incoming flux refugees they did this quietly and not directly because pakistan has over the past few days there's been a lot of consternation at the border checkpoints out of afghanistan they did open the chaman crossing again so pakistan is is not exactly eager to receive refugees. But it looks like they're they're changing their tune a little bit and expecting a lot of people so that's at least some positive news in that in that sphere because it looks like pakistan is going to be the next best option for most people to get out of the area so let's go ahead and jump right to the map and i can show you all the updates that have occurred as of just a few minutes ago okay so here on the map i'm going to show you where these ieds were detonated we don't know exactly where the blast seat was located for these ieds. But basically this stretch of road here is uh is pure and utter carnage likewise here to the north north gate where the people have been trying to get in via the sewage canal a lot of videos coming out showing dozens and dozens if not hundreds of casualties uh right now reports are sketchy whenever a bombing occurs really historically whenever bombing occurs in a third world nation like afghanistan the numbers can fluctuate wildly so local hospitals have said anywhere from 40 casual if 40 people killed upwards of 200 it's really hard to say our guess is that once uh once the morning comes because it's nighttime there right now once the morning comes we'll probably have a better understanding as to how many people how many locals were killed from these explosions. But like i mentioned as of right now the united states is is confirming 12 kia as i mentioned isis is definitely making their presence known throughout the rest of the city so let's check out some of those attacks just a few minutes ago we've gotten reports of two ieds detonating in the vicinity of chardonnal park i have no idea where actually it occurred most likely on one of the main roads and these explosions were uh of course targeting the taliban all right let's push over to another one there is heavy fighting uh in the vicinity of uh daruman palace which is way down south in kabul we can see here the airports up here lots of fighting it's been going on for a couple hours now we've gotten video after video of just constant automatic weapons fire and several explosions it sounds kind of like smaller explosions. But it's really hard to tell from the videos but significant fighting in the vicinity of daruliman palace also there was an maied sorry there was an maid that detonated on the side of a taliban vehicle on road and miids have become a staple by both taliban and isis fighters in the afghanistan conflict over the past few years basically it's just an ied with a very large magnet on it that can stick to the side of a vehicle they've been devastatingly effective for the taliban used them for political assassinations and things like that because really just take out whoever's in the vehicle so very effective and the isis guys have clearly made use of that today also there was an attack some small arms and reportedly an ied that went off in the vicinity of sharia shamali have no real grid for it or anything these are all just locals giving us street names and slang for where these ieds are detonating so it's hard to say exactly where they are there was also an ied that was detonated in the township of babamina right here also really hard to say where exactly that was. But as you can see it is a significant distance away from kabul and isis is allegedly the ones behind that as well so these attacks are are coming like i mentioned uh faster than we can even type or figure out that they're there now switching gears for a second when it comes to egress routes out of h kaya and kabul if you are not able to get onto the airfield to get on to an aircraft it looks like like i mentioned with every minute that passes the land options are are looking a lot more like they're going to be the options for a lot of people and there are really two main ways to get out of afghanistan from the kabul region and neither of them are great so let me turn on our district layers here all right so when it comes to getting out of afghanistan from kabul via a land route there aren't that many options there are only six border checkpoints along the afghan border and really only two of them are decently viable options neither of them are particularly survivable i just wanted to put that out there these are very dangerous routes at this point in time and this chance for success is extremely low. But i'll point them out so the worst option the less ideal option is the very very long journey all the way from kabul down to ghazni uh. And then from ghazni all the way down all the way down to kandahar and then from kandahar to the chaman crossing that's one of the checkpoints that pakistan has recently updated. But this road man this road has caused a lot of death and misery in its day and it has not changed very much there are taliban checkpoints all along this road we don't know exactly where the team here is working on figuring that out. But it is not a good option but hey if people i just want people to know that that it is it does exist the other option is to take uh the road to jalalabad as you can see here very treacherous highway let's see if i can turn turn it and give you some perspective as to the terrain here this terrain is is pretty gnarly it looks it looks a lot better on the the map here than it really is. But this particular pass here has is become infamous for uh ambushes so very treacherous road you see how wide how much it winds through these mountains till it gets to jalalabad and once you get to jbad then you can hook up and take the road to momondara. And then from momondara out through torque and gate another infamous infamous place so not super great options the twerkum gate one is you can get to faster. But again these roads are are very very dangerous um then again kabul is dangerous as well so people who are on the ground are having to make decisions and it's really hard to to figure out what to do. But i just want to highlight for those of you at home who are watching and even for those on the ground who are looking at options this is really what we've been able to find so far and it's not ideal there are some other options that we're pursuing right now. But really from a geographic standpoint we're kind of limited by the terrain we're limited by geography and it's not really a positive solution now of course there are there are other options hunkering down in a safe house until other flights can be arranged uh if aircraft will even be allowed to land or take off from hkia after this 31st deadline we don't know no one can guarantee anything at this point so the situation on the ground is not good it is deteriorating by the second and we expect it to remain very kinetic over the next day as u. S forces withdrawal so that's all we have for right now the situation is highly dynamic like i mentioned by the time this even gets uploaded to youtube this information will most likely be stale. But i just wanted to put this information out there for anyone who is following along and hasn't figured out what's going on on the ground for almost real-time updates we're dropping those on all of our platforms that we're on telegram if you're still in our key base and you can get in good otherwise element is an option because key base is not great uh we're also pushing updates out via instagram and of course if you need this kmz you can always email us directly at s2 underground protonmail. Com uh all of these the links for these kmz's will be in the description below so there you go and. Even though right now this slide might be kind of a moot point i just wanted to throw this up there again for anyone who hasn't seen it these are some resources you can you can use. Although right now again like i mentioned it doesn't seem like it's going to be very possible or feasible to get out via the air at this time things may change who knows we we might we might be surprised and we might actually be able to get everybody out via the air. But as of right now it's it's looking like a very very remote possibility and it looks like a lot of other nations pakistan particularly are expecting a lot of massive land migration to the borders so that's all we've got for today stay tuned for the next one and we'll. See you next time always remember fight in the shade.