At least five soldiers in central Somalia were killed – including one senior official – and 10 wounded Tuesday in a fierce firefight with al-Shabaab terrorists, said local media reports.

The fighting broke out at the Galmudug state paramilitary forces base in the vicinity of Shebelow in the central region of Mudug after al-Shabaab fighters attacked the camp.

Maj. Mohamed Ali Salaad, the commander of Horseed battalion of Galmudug Darwish forces, was also killed in the fighting, according to Somali National Television.

Omar Mustaf, a local official in Galmudug, told Anadolu Agency over the phone that the Galmudug Darwish forces repulsed the al-Shabaab attack.

"There are casualties on the side of Galmudug forces but I can't confirm any numbers killed or injured in the fighting," he said.

He said al-Shabaab suffered huge casualties in the fighting, without giving details.

Shebelow, where the attack took place, is located on the outskirts of the town of Ba'adweyne, which the Somali national army backed by Galmudug state forces recently liberated from terrorist group al-Shabaab.

Al-Shabaab was behind a truck-bombing attack in October 2017 in the capital Mogadishu that took some 600 lives, the worst attack in the Horn of Africa country’s history./aa

The US Federal Reserve is in the process of fully putting away its emergency tools, Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday.

"As the emergency had receded we are required to put these tools away. We are in the process of putting away those tools which are reserved for actual emergencies," he said at a virtual teacher and student town hall meeting.

Powell's comments are considered the first hint as to when the central bank would start unrolling its $120 billion monthly asset purchase program that has been in place to support the American economy during the coronavirus pandemic.

The bank's other strong tool has been keeping its benchmark interest rate near zero during the pandemic, but the Fed signaled June 16 that it could make two rate hikes by 2023 at 0.25% each.

"We can see that the pandemic has changed our economy,” said Powell. “It's still unclear if the delta strain will have a significant impact on the economy.”

The Fed head, meanwhile, pointed to weak labor market conditions that impede the economy from full recovery.

"Millions of people in the service sector are still out of work. That's a part of recovery that is far from complete," he said. "The pandemic is still casting a shadow on economic activity."

The US added 943,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate fell to 5.4%, according to the Labor Department.

The world's largest economy still has 8.7 million unemployed individuals as of July, down from 22 million in March and April 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.

Powell also said digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies that have been on the rise once again in recent weeks, “is becoming more and more important,” adding it is an interesting and challenging question whether the Fed should have a digital currency.

"We provide physical currency. We don't provide digital currency for the public. It's a challenging question if we should," he said./aa

Kenya’s state Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) has given teachers in the East African country seven days from Monday to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or face disciplinary action.

The deadline comes as 1,488 people in Kenya tested positive on Tuesday for the disease from a sample size of 9,773.

The commission has reported a low vaccine uptake by teachers despite being prioritized in the ongoing vaccination exercise.

“We will be asking our county directors and regional directors the number of teachers they have facilitated to get the vaccination and how many teachers are not vaccinated and for whatever reasons, because MoH [the Ministry of Health] has assured us that there are enough vaccines,” said Nancy Macharia, the commission head.

She added that only 33% of teachers in Kenya have been vaccinated. Across the country vaccination centers were full with teachers on Tuesday trying to beat the deadline set by the government.

According to the Health Ministry, Kenya has so far received 2.32 million vaccines and vaccinated 2.1 million people in the East African country, which has a population of 52 million people.

Health officials have warned that children might face new risks in attending school if teachers and staff are not vaccinated.

Normally Kenya’s school year begins in January, but coronavirus restrictions caused the New Year to begin in July after being closed for nine months due to coronavirus.

The positivity rate in Kenya is now 15.2%. From the 1,488 cases Kenya recorded on Tuesday, 1,442 are Kenyans, while 46 are foreigners.

Total confirmed positive cases are now 222,894, and cumulative tests so far conducted number nearly 2.27 million./aa

Western countries, particularly the Netherlands, Sweden, France, and the UK, have been criticized for failing to evacuate the Afghans who worked for them in Kabul, according to media reports.

The NRC daily of the Netherlands reported that the Afghan employees operating in the embassy were shocked on Aug. 15, Sunday, when they saw the Dutch personnel had left the building without a word.

The report noted that the Dutch personnel left the embassy discreetly and 37 Afghan employees found their seats empty.

The Swedish media outlets said that while their 19 nationals in Sweden's Embassy in Kabul were transferred to the US military base in the Qatari capital Doha via helicopter and plane on Monday, the local Afghan employees were abandoned.

Responding to a question on when these Afghans would be taken out of Kabul, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said at a news conference on Monday that there was chaos in the airport.

Also, the Swedish personnel reportedly blocked even the corporate e-mail accounts of these Afghans and did not answer their phones.

In an e-mail message, a group of local Afghan employees earlier notified Sweden's Expressen daily that they were abandoned by their Swedish colleagues.

According to the message, the Afghans called on the daily to be their voice as their lives were in danger and urged the Swedish government to abandon its bureaucratic process and put their lives before the laws.

The group alleged that the Taliban were searching house by house to find those employed by foreign embassies and their families.

Petition in France

A signing petition was started on change.org to make the French Embassy in Kabul rescue 60 interpreter employees who were working for the French army or possessed employment contracts.

An Afghan journalist, Mortaza Behboudi, said at a French TV that Paris abandoned the translators who helped them in Kabul, adding: "They were not on the evacuation list of the French Embassy in Kabul. Locked in their homes, they are hiding away."

UK criticized for slow response

The UK, for its part, is criticized for being late to evacuate the Afghans who worked for the British forces and personnel in the country.

Charlie Herbert, a former senior NATO adviser to the Afghan Interior Ministry, was critical of London, saying the government was not swift enough to ensure the safety of the Afghans and evacuate them.

Herbert, also a former military commander, said he had sent letters to the British secretaries about three-and-a-half weeks ago, saying the Afghan translators should be immediately taken out of the country and relocated to the UK, but the letter was overlooked.

Noting that several young translators and their families were hiding, he further said it was now not possible to evacuate these people.

'Images of desperation' shameful for political West

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the events unfolding at the Kabul airport were shameful and his country should evacuate the Afghans who extended help to German authorities in Afghanistan.

The images of desperation at the Kabul airport are shameful for the political West,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a news conference in Berlin.

Germany is also criticized for taking the army’s stock of beer and wine out of Afghanistan in June, but left the Afghan nationals alone in the country where the Taliban gained control.

The Bild daily reported that the planes had room for alcoholic drinks but no capacity for local Afghan personnel, reminding that Germany brought back 65,000 cans of beer and 340 bottles of wine earlier in June, questioning if the drinks were of more value than the local Afghan personnel or not.

Australia says cannot help all Afghan personnel

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government would not be able to help all Afghans, who assisted their military units, after the Taliban entered capital Kabul.

Noting that the government was committed to supporting those who provided service and assistance to the Australian Defense Force but this support would not reach all of the Afghans, he said Australia would continue to help the local Afghans that stood by the Australian force.

"On-the-ground events have overtaken many efforts. We wish it were different," he said.

- Taliban gaining control over Afghanistan

As part of a peace deal reached in February 2020 between the US and the Taliban, the international forces have begun their withdrawal process this year.

The agreement mandated that the Taliban not target foreign forces, but there was no provision regarding its action towards the Afghan security forces.

While keeping negotiations with the government going in Qatar's Doha, the Taliban has intensified its attacks since June, taking control of many districts and province centers in the past month.

The Taliban took the capital Kabul, which was already besieged, under its control on Sunday when President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan./aa

Thousands of inhabitants and tourists were rescued on Tuesday as a major fire broke out in the Var department in the south of France, local authorities reported.

The forest fires, suspected to have started by miscreants in the town of Gonfaron on Monday, are still not under control.

Dominique Lain, president of the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of Var, told BFMTV news, “as always, a human error is at the origin of this fire since it started close to a motorway rest area, the Sigues area in the Gonfaron-Nice direction.”

Nearly 900 firefighters and 60 rescuers are engaged in the mission to stabilize the flames with the help of four Canadair and two Dash water jet bomber planes. Similar fires have affected vast regions of Greece, Italy and Turkey in recent days.

With the temperatures soaring up to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) with strong winds in the daytime, the flames have spread to at least six municipality areas, destroyed 5000 hectares of land and burnt down around 100 homes.

The department of Var is amongst the popular tourist route and camping sites on the French Riviera.

Authorities have closed several roads in the region for traffic and warned tourists to avoid commuting between Bormes-les-Mimosas and the Gulf of Saint-Tropez.

President Emmanuel Macron, who until last week was enjoying his annual vacation at Fort Bregancon in Var, and interior minister Gerald Darmanin are scheduled to visit the affected parts./aa

Two days after the Taliban took effective control of Afghanistan, Facebook will continue its ban on Taliban content on its platforms because it considers the organization a terrorist group, the social media giant told the BBC on Tuesday.

“The Taliban is sanctioned as a terrorist organization under US law and we have banned them from our services under our Dangerous Organisation policies. This means we remove accounts maintained by or on behalf of the Taliban and prohibit praise, support, and representation of them,” a Facebook spokesperson told the BBC.

"We also have a dedicated team of Afghanistan experts, who are native Dari and Pashto speakers and have knowledge of local context, helping to identify and alert us to emerging issues on the platform,” the spokesperson said.

Facebook added that it does not make decisions about the recognition of national governments, but instead follows the “authority of the international community.”

The ban on Taliban content also applies to other platforms Facebook own, including Instagram and WhatsApp.

The Taliban’s retaking of control of Afghanistan has also put the spotlight on how other social media companies are dealing with the situation.

Taliban spokesmen have used Twitter to send updates to their followers.

A Twitter spokesperson said the company has policies against violent groups and hateful conduct. Twitter also does not allow groups on its platform that promote terrorism or violence against civilians.

The BBC also contacted Google-owned YouTube for its comment on its policies toward the Taliban, but did not get an immediate response./aa

  After taking over Afghanistan, the Taliban declared "amnesty" for government officials Tuesday and vowed to uphold women's rights under Islamic law – promises met with skepticism in Washington. 

Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, women virtually had no rights under the fundamentalist Taliban's oppressive rule. Most were forced to quit their jobs and stay at home, denied access to education and health care, enduring high rates of illiteracy and maternal mortality.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said Tuesday at a news conference that they were working to form a government and that "nobody will be harmed." Mujahid said the Taliban's aim is to make sure "Afghanistan is no longer a battlefield of conflict." 

"We have pardoned all those who have fought against us. Animosities have come to an end," he said. "We do not want to have any problems with the international community."

Hours after the Taliban news conference, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States won't take the group at its word but will watch its actions when it comes to human rights. 

“This is not about trust. This is about verify," Sullivan said at the White House. “And we'll see what the Taliban end up doing in the days and weeks ahead.”

Interpreters, drivers and others who helped U.S. and NATO forces fear the Taliban will "slaughter" them, viewing them as traitors.

Many Afghans remain so fearful of Taliban rule that they rushed departing planes after the militant group gained control of Kabul. Chaos unfolded a day earlier at Hamid Karzai International Airport, where thousands desperate to flee the country forced the United States and other countries to halt the evacuation of diplomats and Afghan civilians who assisted American troops.

Mujahid said the militant group is "committed to the rights of women under the system of sharia (Islamic) law," but he emphasized they would work and study "within our frameworks."

"They are going to be working shoulder to shoulder with us. We would like to assure the international community that there will be no discrimination," he said. 

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan doesn’t want the women to be the victims anymore,” said Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission.

The Taliban regime was known for particularly violent enforcement of draconian codes. For instance, women seen in public without a male relative could be raped, abducted and forced into marriage. Women who were raped could be executed. 

In May, a bombing at a girls’ school in Kabul killed dozens, many of them students ages  11 to 15. Though the Taliban denied responsibility, the Afghan government blamed them.

Sullivan said the United States has tools – including sanctions, international condemnation and isolation – it can deploy if women in Afghanistan are mistreated.

Though Sullivan said his heart goes out to Afghan women and girls, he argued the choice was not between saving or abandoning them. Deciding to keep a U.S. military force in the country would have come with human costs for American soldiers.

“These are the choices a president has to make," he said.

The United States is working with the Taliban, who said they will provide safe passage to Kabul's airport for Americans and others trying to leave.

"I come at this with no expectations," Sullivan said about whether the Taliban are different from the way they were in 2001. “It’s going to be up to the Taliban to show the rest of the world who they are and how they intend to proceed. The track record has not been good.”

Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement that air traffic controllers and ground handlers at Kabul's airport are "rapidly scaling up operations to ensure the smooth flow of military reinforcements to the airport and the evacuation of U.S. and partner civilians."

McKenzie said he made clear to Taliban senior leaders in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Sunday that interference with the evacuation or any attack "would be met with overwhelming force in the defense of our forces."

"The protection of U.S. civilians and our partners is my highest priority," he said, "and we will take all necessary action to ensure a safe and efficient withdrawal."

Mujahid said private media could maintain independence,  but journalists "should not work against national values." 

The White House froze Afghan reserves Sunday in an attempt to block the Taliban from accessing money in U.S. banks, according to The Washington Post. 

The Kabul airport was back open, and as many as 800 people were evacuated overnight, including 165 U.S. citizens, said Army Gen. William Taylor, an official on the Joint Staff.

U.S. military commanders in Kabul are communicating with Taliban officials outside the international airport to allow for the safe evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghans, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday.

Evacuation flights could carry as many as 9,000 people out of Afghanistan per day, Taylor said. The airport has been secured by American Marines and soldiers, and more than 4,000 troops will be on the ground by the end of Tuesday, he said.

Biden's remarks draw bipartisan criticism; $500M pledged for refugees

President Joe Biden defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops despite the rapid collapse of the Afghan government. 

The president returned to Camp David, the Maryland presidential retreat, and stayed largely out of view as he drew bipartisan criticism for the administration's handling of the evacuations.  

After his remarks, the White House announced Biden allocated $500 million from the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund to assist refugees fleeing Afghanistan.

The funds will be used to meet "unexpected urgent refugee and migration needs of refugees, victims of conflict, and other persons at risk as a result of the situation in Afghanistan, including applicants for Special Immigrant Visas," according to a statement from the White House. 

“We plan on being on the ground there in Afghanistan for the next couple of weeks,” Kirby said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It’s not just about moving out Americans. It is very much about meeting our moral and sacred obligations to those Afghans who helped us over the last 20 years, getting as many of them out as we can.”/US Today

US authorities arrested a Chicago pharmacist Tuesday for selling dozens of official cards showing proof of Covid-19 vaccination on eBay, the Justice Department said.

The department said Tangtang Zhao sold 125 official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards for $10 each.

Zhao worked at an unidentified chain of pharmacies and had access to the cards, which are provided each person who gets a coronavirus vaccination.

The cards are increasingly important as more businesses, offices and public events demand proof of vaccination by workers or participants.

Zhao was indicted on 12 counts of theft of government property and faces up to 10 years in prison on each count.

"We take seriously, and will vigorously investigate, any criminal offense that contributes to the distrust around vaccines and vaccination status," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said in a statement./AFP