A heavily armed commando unit that assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was composed of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, authorities said on Thursday, as the hunt went on for the masterminds of the killing.

Moïse, 53, was fatally shot early on Wednesday at his home by what officials said was a group of foreign, trained killers, pitching the poorest country in the Americas deeper into turmoil amid political divisions, hunger and widespread gang violence.

Authorities tracked the suspected assassins on Wednesday to a house near the scene of the crime in Pétionville, a northern, hillside suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince. A firefight lasted late into the night and authorities detained a number of suspects on Thursday.

Police Chief Charles Leon paraded 17 men before journalists at a news conference late on Thursday, showing a number of Colombian passports, plus assault rifles, machetes, walkie-talkies and materials including bolt cutters and hammers.

“Foreigners came to our country to kill the president,” Charles said. “There were … 26 Colombians, identified by their passports … and two Haitian Americans as well.”

He said 15 Colombians were captured, as well as two Haitian Americans. Three of the assailants were killed and eight remained on the run, Charles said.

Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano said in a statement that preliminary information indicated that Colombians involved in the attack were retired members of the country’s military. He said Bogota would cooperate in the investigation.

Haiti’s minister of elections and interparty relations, Mathias Pierre, identified the Haitian-American suspects as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55.

A State Department spokesman could not confirm if any U.S. citizens were among those detained, but U.S. authorities were in regular contact with Haitian officials, including investigative authorities, to discuss how the United States could provide assistance.

Officials in the mostly French- and Creole-speaking Caribbean nation had said on Wednesday the assassins appeared to have spoken in English and Spanish.

“It was a full, well-equipped commando, with more than six cars and a lot of equipment,” Pierre said.

Officials have not yet given a motive for the killing. Since taking office in 2017, Moïse had faced mass protests against his rule — first over corruption allegations and his management of the economy, then over his increasing grip on power.

An angry crowd gathered on Thursday morning to watch the police operation unfold, with some setting fire to the suspects’ cars and to the house where they had hunkered down. Bullets were strewn in the street.

“Burn them!” shouted some of the hundreds of people outside the police station where the suspects were being held.

Charles said the local population had helped police track down the suspects, but he implored residents in the sprawling seafront city of 1 million people not to take justice into their own hands.

Residents of Brooklyn’s ‘Little Haiti’ react to Moise assassination

A 15-day state of emergency was declared on Wednesday to help authorities apprehend the killers. But interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said on Thursday it was time for the economy to reopen and that he had given instructions for the airport to restart operations.

Vacuum of power

Moïse’s death has generated confusion about who is the legitimate leader of the country of 11 million people, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

Haiti has struggled to achieve stability since the fall of the Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986, grappling with a series of coups and foreign interventions.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission – meant to restore order after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 – ended in 2019 with the country still in disarray.

“I can picture a scenario under which there are issues regarding to whom the armed forces and national police are loyal, in the case there are rival claims to being placeholder president of the country,” said Ryan Berg, an analyst with the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Haiti’s 1987 constitution stipulates the head of the Supreme Court should take over. But amendments that are not unanimously recognized state that it be the prime minister, or, in the last year of a president’s mandate – the case with Moïse – that parliament should elect a president.

The head of the Supreme Court died last month due to COVID-19 amid a surge in infections in one of the few countries yet to start a vaccination campaign.

There is no sitting parliament as legislative elections scheduled for late 2019 were postponed amid political unrest.

Moïse just this week appointed a new prime minister, Ariel Henry, to take over from Joseph, although he had yet to be sworn in when the president was killed.

Joseph appeared on Wednesday to take charge of the situation, running the government response to the assassination, appealing to Washington for support and declaring a state of emergency.

Henry – considered more favorably by the opposition – told Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste that he did not consider Joseph the legitimate prime minister and he should revert to the role of foreign minister.

“I think we need to speak. Claude was supposed to stay in the government I was going to have,” Henry was quoted as saying.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti said on Thursday Joseph would remain leader until an election was held, urging all parties to set aside their differences.

Moïse, backed by the international community, had been pushing to hold both elections and a constitutional referendum in September, efforts that were vehemently opposed by Haitian civil society, which had called first for a transitional government to guide the country to a vote.

Pierre told Reuters the Cabinet intended to guide the country to elections in two months’ time as planned.

“There are many unknowns about what happens next,” said Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “But it is important to remember that that was also the case before the assassination of Moïse.”

(REUTERS)

The US military mission in Afghanistan will end on August 31, President Joe Biden announced Thursday, as Afghan commandos battled the Taliban for control of a provincial capital in the most brazen assault by the militants since Washington stepped up its troop withdrawal.

Nearly 20 years after it invaded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the US military has “achieved” its goals in the country, killing Osama bin Laden, degrading Al-Qaeda and preventing more attacks on the United States, Biden said in a White House speech.

“We are ending America’s longest war,” he said.

“The status quo is not an option,” Biden said of staying in the country. “I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan.”

“The United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies created to respond to a world as it was 20 years ago,” he said. “We need to meet the threats where they are today.”

We are repositioning our resources to meet terror threats where they are now: across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

But make no mistake: we have the capabilities to protect the homeland from any resurgent terrorist challenge emanating from Afghanistan.

Biden said the United States “did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build” and that the Afghan people alone should determine their future.

But he acknowledged the uncertainty about what that future would look like.

Asked if a Taliban takeover was “inevitable,” the president said: “No, it is not.”

But, he admitted, “the likelihood there is going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely.”

“The Afghan government… has to come together,” the president said. “They clearly have the capacity to sustain the government in place. The question is, will they generate the kind of cohesion to do it?”

He expressed faith in Afghan forces, who for years have been trained by and received equipment from the United States, against the resurgent Taliban.

“I do not trust the Taliban,” Biden said, “but I trust the capacity of the Afghan military.”

And he flatly rejected comparisons with the US experience in Vietnam.

“The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army,” Biden said. “They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.”

“There’s going to be no circumstance where you are going to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan,” he added. “It is not at all comparable.”

Fighting rages

Biden’s address came as fighting raged for a second straight day in the capital of Afghanistan’s Badghis province, with residents either fleeing the city or barricading themselves in their homes.

Plumes of smoke billowed over Qala-i-Naw, soundtracked by gunfire as the insurgents fought hundreds of Afghan commandos rushed to the city overnight.

Qala-i-Naw resident Aziz Tawakoli said Taliban fighters were still roaming the city.

“You can see them going up and down the streets on their motorcycles,” he said.

Badghis health official Abdul Latif Rostaee said at least 10 civilians had been taken to hospital since the fighting erupted.

“Our security forces are bravely fighting them and the enemy is being pushed back,” Badghis Governor Hessamuddin Shams told AFP on Thursday. “They are fleeing. We will give a hard blow to the enemy.”

Badghis provincial council member Zia Gul Habibi said the Taliban had suffered casualties, but also surrounded the city.

“All districts are under their control… People are really in fear,” she said. Afghan civilians have long paid an outsized price in the fighting.

Since the US ramped up its withdrawal—which the Pentagon has said is 90 percent complete—the Taliban have launched a blistering campaign to capture new territory, and fears are mounting that Afghan forces will collapse without vital American air support.

President Ashraf Ghani said the government had the capacity to handle the situation, but admitted difficulties lay ahead.

“What we are witnessing is one of the most complicated stages of the transition,” he said in a speech in Kabul.

“Legitimacy is ours; God is with us.”

Taliban victory?

In London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said most British troops had left Afghanistan, as part of a NATO withdrawal in parallel to the US pullout.

The Taliban, meanwhile, appear to be pressing for a full military victory.

Supposed peace talks between the insurgents and the government in Doha have largely fizzled out after months of deadlock, and the Taliban have captured dozens of new districts since early May. Human Rights Watch said the insurgents were forcing people from their houses in northern areas that they had captured.

Biden pledged to continue supporting the Afghan government and security forces and said thousands of Afghan translators who worked for US forces and face threats from the Taliban would be able to find refuge in the United States.

“There is a home for you in the United States, if you choose,” he said. “We will stand with you, just as you stood with us.”

(AFP)