Hurricane Dorian, the unpredictable monster of a storm that has pummeled parts of the Bahamas for the past 24 hours, has been downgraded to a Category 3 storm as it remains in a standstill near Grand Bahama.
The National Hurricane Center said in a news release at 1 a.m. ET, that the storm is continuing to produce wind gusts of up to 155 mph and a storm surge of 18 feet. The storm’s current movement is considered stationary.
Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said at least five people were killed and dozens were injured. The storm has continued to impact the islands so it is difficult to determine the extent of damage, which will likely be historic.
Officials in the Bahamas have reported more than 2,000 distress messages, including reports of a 5-month-old baby stranded on a roof.
Dorian unleashed massive flooding across the Bahamas on Monday, pummeling the islands with so much wind and water that officials urged people to find floatation devices and grab hammers to break out of their attics if necessary.
Residents in Florida have been trying to track the slow-moving storm as it sits about 100 miles off West Palm Beach. There have been signs that the storm will make a northern turn, according to the Miami Herald.
Derek Giardino of the National Weather Service said the probabilities of Dorian making a direct hit on the state’s landfall has diminished, but “is not completely ruled out.”
Boris Johnson is considering seeking an early general election if MPs seeking to block a no-deal Brexit defeat the government this week.
The BBC understands "live discussions" are going on in No 10 about asking Parliament to approve a snap poll.
Political editor Laura Kuenssberg said it could happen as soon as Wednesday but no final decision had been taken.
Tory ex-ministers are joining forces with Labour to stop the UK leaving the EU on 31 October without a deal.
Amid mounting speculation about an election, Mr Johnson is due to hold an unscheduled cabinet meeting at 17.00 BST on Monday and will also speak to Conservative MPs.
The prime minister has said the UK must leave the EU on 31 October, with or without a deal, prompting a number of MPs to unite to try to prevent the UK leaving without an agreement.
They are expected to put forward legislation on Tuesday to stop no deal under "SO24" or Standing Order 24 - the rule allowing MPs to ask for a debate on a "specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration".
Tory rebels have been warned those who support the move would be expelled from the party and deselected.
A No 10 spokesman said it was treating this week's Brexit votes as an issue of confidence, which traditionally trigger a general election if the government loses.
But leading figures, including ex-cabinet minister David Gauke, have insisted that despite the threat of expulsion, they will press ahead with efforts to pass legislation requiring the PM to seek another Brexit extension if he cannot get a deal.
Media playback is unsupported on your device
There is not scheduled to be another general election until 2022.
Under the terms of the Fixed Terms Parliament Act, Mr Johnson would require the backing of two-thirds of the UK's 650 MPs to trigger an early poll this autumn.
Should this happen, the prime minister would be able to recommend the date of the poll - likely to be a hugely contentious issue - to the Queen.
If Parliament were dissolved on Friday then the earliest possible date for an election would be Friday 11 October. With polls normally taking place on a Thursday, 17 October is potentially the more likely earliest opportunity.
CIA Director Gina Haspel has raised logistical concerns about the plan with other administration officials, emphasising that the agency operatives — who marshal the militias to hunt Taliban, al-Qaida and Islamic State militants — largely depend on the military for airstrikes, overhead surveillance, medical support and bomb technicians. (AP)
Written by Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Julian E Barnes, Matthew Rosenberg and John Ismay
Senior White House advisers have proposed secretly expanding the CIA’s presence in Afghanistan if international forces begin to withdraw from the country, according to US officials. But CIA and military officials have expressed reservations, prompting a debate in the administration that could complicate negotiations with the Taliban to end the war.
Some administration officials want CIA-backed militia forces in Afghanistan to serve as part of a counterterrorism force that would prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State or al-Qaida as US military troops prepare to leave — in effect, an insurance policy.
But others are skeptical that the shadowy militias, many of which face accusations of brutality, can serve as a bulwark against terrorism without the support of the US military.
Advertising
CIA Director Gina Haspel has raised logistical concerns about the plan with other administration officials, emphasising that the agency operatives — who marshal the militias to hunt Taliban, al-Qaida and Islamic State militants — largely depend on the military for airstrikes, overhead surveillance, medical support and bomb technicians.
Skeptics have also noted that US intelligence agencies do not believe the Islamic State’s presence in Afghanistan justifies a vast increase in resources given limited budgets. The Islamic State’s affiliate there is not an immediate threat to the West, despite its regular attacks on Afghan civilians and continuing fight with the Taliban, according to intelligence officials.
The disagreement about the future of the CIA in Afghanistan underscores the fault lines within the administration between those who want a final withdrawal and those who fear it would expose the United States to terrorist threats. This article is based on interviews with a half-dozen current or former officials briefed on the administration’s discussions. The CIA declined to comment, and the White House declined to respond on the record to a request for comment.
The issue could pose an obstacle as US and Taliban negotiators seek a deal to end the longest war in United States history. The Taliban have made clear that they see little difference between US military troops and CIA officers, and they have insisted in the current peace talks in Qatar that the CIA must leave along with international military forces in the coming months or over the next few years.
The top US negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, said over the weekend that the two sides were on “the threshold of an agreement” after the latest round of negotiations. They have broadly covered the fate of the Afghan security forces but have not dealt directly with the militia groups, or US support for them, said a person familiar with the negotiations.
The Afghan government is not part of the negotiations, but the deal is expected to open a path for talks between the government and the Taliban.
Supporters of the plan to expand CIA support for the militias believe it could address the most potent critique of the peace talks: that a withdrawal of US forces would leave the United States with little ability to prevent terrorist groups from once again using Afghanistan as a base of operations.
“The high-end forces, including CIA-supported forces, are not going to win any war for you, but they may degrade the capability of terrorist groups,” said Seth G. Jones, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former adviser to the commanding general of US Special Operations forces in Afghanistan.
But like other former officials, Jones said that ramping up the operations of the militias while drawing down the US military would be impractical and ineffective.
A peace deal that pulls out US forces but does not disarm the Taliban would give it control of larger parts of Afghanistan, effectively creating a haven for terrorist groups that no increase in CIA support to the militias could counter, Jones warned.
CIA-supported militias operate across Afghanistan and are used by the United States and the Afghan government to target terrorist and insurgent cells.
These militias have taken on increasingly dangerous missions in Afghanistan in the past year, seeking out hard-to-find and well-defended terrorist leaders, a former senior Defense Department official said.
They trace their roots to the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the CIA began assembling a patchwork alliance of warlord-led fighting groups to topple the Taliban and pursue al-Qaida fighters.
After the fall of the Taliban and the establishment of a new Afghan government, the CIA’s shadowy paramilitary arm, known as Ground Branch, began transforming the fighting groups. Some developed into large, well-trained and equipped militias that initially worked outside the auspices of the Afghan government. The militias were used for sensitive and covert missions, including pursuing terrorist leaders across the border into Pakistan’s lawless frontier territory.
In more recent years, the agency’s hold over militant groups and other regional counterterrorism forces and strike teams has waned some, former officials said. Many of the militias now fall under the command of Afghanistan’s own intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security. But there is little doubt they are still advised, and often directed, by the CIA.
The Taliban’s disdain for the CIA’s Afghan counterpart has been apparent in recent months. In July, a bomb targeting the Afghan covert service killed eight members and six civilians, and wounded hundreds more. In January, Taliban fighters infiltrated an Afghan intelligence base in Wardak province, killing dozens in one of the deadliest attacks on the service during the nearly 18-year war.
Fighting in Afghanistan has increased since peace discussions began as both sides try to strengthen their positions. Taliban fighters mounted two attacks over the weekend, including one in the northern city of Kunduz that killed the top police spokesman and wounded the police chief, according to local officials.
In a Fox News interview last week, President Donald Trump alluded to keeping US forces, and perhaps the CIA, in Afghanistan after any deal with the Taliban is reached. “We are reducing that presence very substantially and we’re going to always have a presence and we’re going to have high intelligence,” he said.
Trump said that the troop level in the country would be reduced to 8,600, down from roughly 14,000. The military has pushed a plan to gradually draw down forces, but administration officials have fiercely debated the precise timeline.
The president has been vague about his preferred outcome on the current peace proposal or the plan to expand the CIA role, and Haspel has also withheld her opinion in meetings. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been driving the peace negotiations forward. John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, opposes the current peace deal, largely on worries about whether Afghanistan can keep terrorists at bay on its own.
Senior military leaders are divided. Some believe the peace talks are worth trying, but many remain worried that a troop drawdown that moves too quickly will lead to a collapse of the country.
Increasing the CIA’s role in Afghanistan as troop numbers decrease is not a new idea. In 2014, as the Obama administration considered withdrawing all US troops from the country by 2016, policymakers weighed using the agency-sponsored militias as an Afghan counterterrorism force.
But the CIA-backed militias are deeply controversial within the wider Afghan population. Afghans have charged that they are responsible for attacks that left many civilians dead and use brutal tactics that have turned large swaths of Afghans against the forces. Last month, tribal elders said that a raid by the Afghan-intelligence-backed forces killed 11 civilians in Paktia province, prompting the Afghan government to begin investigating.
While the CIA’s precise footprint in Afghanistan is unclear, the agency invested more resources into the country at the start of the Trump administration in an effort to pursue Taliban fighters. Now, agency paramilitary officers — working often from an annex near the US Embassy in Kabul — team up with militias and other small Afghan intelligence teams across the country to go after al-Qaida, the Islamic State, the Haqqani network and often various factions within the Taliban, current and former officials said.
But small groups of the US military’s Special Operations troops also provide critical support and training for the militias. (CIA teams supported by US commandos, long known as Omega Teams, are now mostly composed of soldiers drawn from the Army’s elite Ranger regiment.)
For the CIA militias to serve as an effective counterterrorism force, those US military teams would need to remain, even if only with a few dozen people, in different parts of the country, current and former officials said.
The exact size and nature of the agency’s presence in Afghanistan are closely guarded secrets, and details about the militia groups the CIA advises are also murky.
Even with continued military support, expanding the agency’s work would mean extending one of the deadliest missions in the agency’s history.
Advertising
At least 20 CIA members have been killed in Afghanistan during the war, according to current and former officials. In July, an Army bomb disposal technician was severely wounded during a CIA-led mission, and an agency contractor was killed over Memorial Day weekend.
Taliban forces on Sunday killed security personnel in Afghanistan's Baghlan province, their second attack in two days amid ongoing peace talks with the U.S., according to The Associated Press.
The assault on Puli Khumri, the province’s capital, occurred hours after Zalmay Khalilzad, who is overseeing peace talks on behalf of the U.S., said that he had warned the Taliban during negotiations in Qatar that such attacks must end, the AP noted.
ADVERTISEMENT
Provincial police chief Jawed Basharat’s office said firefights on the outskirts of the capital were ongoing. The Afghan interior ministry, meanwhile, reported that two security force personnel, three Taliban fighters and four civilians had been killed, with another two security forces and 20 civilians injured.
Mabobullah Ghafari, a member of the provincial council, told the AP that the situation in the city was deteriorating and that Taliban forces could take the city without reinforcements from the central government in Kabul.
“People are fleeing their houses and properties trying to escape from the city,” he said, according to the AP.
“We hear the sound of blasts. The people are so worried,” added the provincial council chief, Safdar Mohsini. “The Taliban are in residential areas fighting with Afghan security forces. We need reinforcements to arrive as soon as possible.”
Taliban forces killed at least 25 people and wounded another 85 in Kunduz on Saturday, with the interior ministry reporting Sunday that some Taliban forces fled to Baghlan after security forces drove them from Kunduz.
“We are on the verge of ending the invasion and reaching a peaceful solution for Afghanistan,” Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban spokesman in Qatar, said, according to the AP.
Any peace agreement, Khalilzad said, “will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honorable & sustainable peace and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies, or any other country.”
Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong have blocked roads to the territory's airport, disrupting the operation of the major Asian transport hub.
Trains to the airport were halted and roads blocked. Passengers had to walk to the terminal. Most flights operated as normal, but delays were reported.
Thousands of black-clad protesters then tried to enter the terminal building but were stopped by riot police.
On Saturday, police and protesters clashed during a banned rally.
Live warning shots were fired into the air and tear gas and water cannon used to disperse tens of thousands of protesters.
Images later showed riot police hitting people with batons and using pepper spray on a train in Hong Kong's metro.
Police say they were called to the scene amid violence against citizens by "radical protesters".
Media playback is unsupported on your device
People took to the streets on Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of the Beijing government banning fully democratic elections in China's special administrative region.
The political crisis in Hong Kong - a former British colony - is now in its third month with no end in sight, the BBC China correspondent Stephen McDonnell says.
What happened at Hong Kong's airport?
Thousands of protesters gathered at the main bus station near Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok airport on Sunday morning.
Airport staff reinforced by police officers stopped their advance.
The demonstrators then moved to other parts of the complex, blocking roads and other transport links.
The airport is built on a tiny outlying island and can only be reached via a series of bridges.
"If we disrupt the airport, more foreigners will read the news about Hong Kong," one protester was quoted as saying by Reuters.
At one point the airport express train service was suspended. Officials said this was because of debris thrown onto the line.
Following the arrival of riot police, demonstrators first built barricades to slow their advance, then left the airport on foot.
In August, protesters paralysed the airport for several days. Hundreds of flights had to be cancelled.
