Several Afghan citizens who worked for Norwegian defense forces in Afghanistan have received emails from Norway’s defense ministry, informing them that their applications for “assistance and/or re-establishment in Norway” have been registered. They’re now hoping they’ll win asylum in Norway after all. Newspaper Klassekampen reported this week that the former Norwegian employees are mostly in […]
Taliban moves into Norway’s embassy
September 10, 2021
Nearly 60 members of the Taliban have moved into Norway’s and Denmark’s embassy complex in Kabul, after it was evacuated and closed in mid-August. They allowed a reporter and photographer from Oslo-based newspaper Aftenposten to visit, however, and promised they were simply “taking care” of the embassy at present. “This area still belongs to your […]
Norway calls for more US ‘humility’
September 6, 2021
The Norwegian government doesn’t think the US-led withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan last month was the “extraordinary success” that US President Joe Biden thinks it was. Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide is calling for more “humility” when NATO evaluates how it spent the past 20 years. Søreide flew to Washington DC late last week […]
Afghan evacuees swiftly resettled
September 3, 2021
Fully 676 of the 860 Afghans flown under chaotic conditions to Norway last week have already been granted status as refugees, and 243 have been sent to new homes in 30 different Norwegian towns and cities. Several hundred more who worked for Norwegian forces in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, however, couldn’t be evacuated […]
Fate of military equipment ‘unsure’
August 30, 2021
Defense Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen said neither he nor military brass know what’s happened to around NOK 600 million worth of weapons, vehicles, communications equipment and other military hardware that had been provided to Afghanistan’s security forces. They either fled or surrended to the Taliban in recent weeks, leaving a fortune of modern equipment behind. Nearly […]
Afghan evacuation ‘completely over’
August 30, 2021
Norway pulled its last remaining military personnel out of Afghanistan in the early morning hours of Monday. That also brings an end to the chaotic evacuation of both Norwegian and Afghan civilians during the past week, and the closure of Norway’s last remaining military field hospital at the airport in Kabul. A deadly terrorist attack […]
Bombing in Kabul halts evacuations
August 27, 2021
UPDATED: Norway’s military field hospital inside the airport in Kabul was still operating and busy on Friday, after bomb blasts in and around the Afghan capital’s airport area Thursday afternoon. All Norwegian government personnel still in Afghanistan were accounted for, according to Lt Col Ivar Moen at the Norwegian military’s operative headquarters, but evacuation efforts had […]
Defense minister comes under fire
August 25, 2021
Frank Bakke-Jensen has stirred controversy in his role as defense minister on earlier occasions, but this week he was all but being publicly shamed. The target of the complaints: Bakke-Jensen’s decision to campaign for his Conservative Party in his home county of Troms og Finnmark and then spend a day at home in Northern Norway, […]
Police and special forces sent to Kabul
August 24, 2021
Norwegian police and members of the military’s special forces have been sent back to Afghanistan, while Norway’s military field hospital in Kabul has to be shut down. The goal is to provide reinforcements and speed work underway to evacuate both Norwegian- and foreign citizens by the Taliban’s deadline of August 31. “It’s extremely demanding there,” […]
Bitter end to being ‘a good NATO ally’
August 23, 2021
NEWS ANALYSIS: As more flights land in Oslo with evacuees from Afghanistan, there’s no end to the soul-searching over Norway’s involvement in the war-torn country over the past 20 years. Calls have gone out for a new evaluation of the Afghan mission, even after a Norwegian government-appointed commission concluded five years ago that Norway didn’t […]
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