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(WASHINGTON) — Human rights groups and U.S. officials are concerned about the safety of Olympic athletes in China if they speak out on political issues at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing following a warning from a Chinese official about “punishment” for competitors should they do so.

Yang Shu, the deputy director of international relations for the Beijing organizing committee, said any speech against the Olympic spirit or Chinese laws would be “subject to certain punishment” during a press conference on Jan. 18. Shu did nothing to ease concerns at a press conference on Tuesday, saying that International Olympic Committee Rule 50 does include some speech regulations.

“At the medal ceremonies, they cannot make their opinions but in press conferences or interviews, athletes are free to express their opinions,” Shu said Tuesday. “But athletes need to be responsible for what they say.”

Shu’s comments spurred human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and U.S. officials to warn athletes about speaking out and to call on the IOC to guarantee freedom of speech at the Games.

“Athletes are also being obliged to compete in this environment by an International Olympic Committee, that … seems completely unwilling or unable to actually follow through on those obligations,” Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, said in an interview with ABC News.

In response to the comments during Yang’s press conference, a group of representatives from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., released a statement calling on the IOC to “immediately clarify that free speech by athletes is absolutely guaranteed at the Olympics.”

When reached for comment about free speech at the Olympics, the IOC told ABC News Thursday that “the Games are governed by the IOC Rules. They will be applied at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 like at any other edition of the Games before.”

Despite the concern expressed by some about possible repercussions if athletes speak out, Carl Minzner, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, doesn’t see a high chance of the Chinese government taking strong action.

“It’s hard for me to imagine Beijing doing something really extreme, such as actually detaining or imprisoning a foreign athlete … Doing so would likely just generate more unwanted attention,” Minzner said in an interview with ABC News.

Some lawmakers in the U.S. aren’t counting on the Chinese to hang back. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a hearing Thursday on the Beijing Olympics with panelists who work to address human rights issues in China and protect those affected.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, released a letter on Jan. 31 asking the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee what their plans were for protecting athletes, highlighting freedom of expression concerns and data privacy worries.

“We write with urgency about the safety and protection of U.S. athletes who are headed to Beijing, China, especially given the recent statement by a Chinese official about ‘punishment’ of athletes who exercise freedom of expression,” their letter said. “We share with you our concerns on the risks to freedom of expression, data privacy and exposure to products made by forced labor.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., held a press conference on Jan. 24 to discuss human rights abuses in China and the need for increased security measures for American athletes.

“I can’t tell you how worried I am about the athletes competing in Beijing. Look at what communist China did to silence and disappear, silence and disappear, Peng Shuai,” Scott said.

Enes (Kanter) Freedom, the NBA player who has called for athletes to boycott the Olympics in recent weeks, joined the Senator by phone.

Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis player, went absent from public view last November after accusing former Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli of coercing her into having sex in a since-deleted post on the Chinese social media app, Weibo.

Two weeks later, Peng appeared in a video where she denied having been sexually assaulted, a move the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) called “insufficient” in verifying Peng’s safety. Following the incident, the WTA announced a suspension on all events in China, citing “serious doubts that she [Peng] is free, safe and not subject to censorship, coercion and intimidation.”

In a press conference on Feb. 3, IOC President Thomas Bach indicated that a meeting with Peng would occur when COVID protocols allow it to happen.

“I am very happy and very grateful to Peng Shuai. She will enter the closed-loop to have the meeting that she also wants,” he said.

Although there were no known incidents of athletes facing repercussions from the Chinese government when the Olympics took place in the same host city 14 years ago, the role athletes play in the broader political discussion and how they use their platform has changed significantly since 2008, according to Richardson.

“We didn’t have Colin Kaepernick, we didn’t have, you know, [tennis star] Andy Murray saying he’s not gonna go compete in Saudi, it’s a different ballgame,” Richardson said.

Free speech has been a subject of controversy in China in recent years as freedom of expression and press have come into question. Article 35 in the Chinese Constitution states that “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.”

Regardless, political comments deemed inappropriate have been addressed inconsistently, experts said.

“If people say or publish views or otherwise express views that authorities don’t like, they are subject to prosecution under a variety of broad laws that are often arbitrarily interpreted, “said Richardson.

The Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Olympics in December over China’s record on human rights, particularly its treatment of ethnic Uyghurs, which the United States has previously declared a genocide. The decision will prevent United States government officials from attending any events in Beijing, but will not impact the participation of any American athletes.

The 2022 Winter Olympics will take place from Feb. 4 – 20. The American Olympic team has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(BEIJING) — With the Beijing Olympics set to begin, a group of international scientists is once more calling for a “comprehensive international investigation” into the origins of COVID-19.

It’s the latest in a series of strongly worded letters demanding more transparency from the Chinese government, once again stoking a contentious debate that’s been ongoing throughout the pandemic’s many months.

The letter — signed by 20 scientists from the U.S., U.K., Germany, New Zealand, France, Australia, India and Japan — echoes what have become broad international calls for a more thorough examination, unfettered by geopolitics, into where COVID-19 came from. It also underscores continued criticism from both the U.S. and international bodies over the Chinese government’s lack of cooperation.

“The Olympic Charter states that ‘The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity,'” wrote the scientist group, co-organized by Jamie Metzl, a former WHO adviser and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Unfortunately, as athletes from across the globe gather together today for the start of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, this noble aspiration is being undermined through the ongoing efforts of the host government to prevent a comprehensive international investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Increased and united scrutiny into COVID-19’s origins is “a true representation of the ideals underlying the Olympic movement,” the letter said, and would “promote openness and mutual trust,” especially at a time when the world’s athletes convene upon Beijing.

Failing to understand how the virus — which is now responsible for claiming the lives of more than 5.7 million people worldwide — leaves “everyone on earth and future generations … at heightened and unnecessary risk of future pandemics,” the letter said.

No firm conclusion has yet been made as to where COVID-19 came from, with international health and U.S. intelligence bodies stalled between two theories: whether the virus emerged from natural animal spillover, or whether it came from an accidental lab experiment leak in Wuhan, China.

Following President Joe Biden’s 90-day push this summer for his intel agencies to “redouble their efforts” in uncovering a more definitive conclusion on COVID-19’s origins, the intelligence community has remained “divided” on its most likely origins. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in its report, underscored the barriers to finding any concrete answers — namely, unhelpful noncooperation from the Chinese government, which is “likely to impede investigation.”

A World Health Organization-led team also emphasized that there must be more sharing of records, samples and raw data for any real progress to take place.

The WHO’s first phase study into COVID-19’s origins, which deemed a lab leak “extremely unlikely,” faced a barrage of questions on issues of access and transparency. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there was more work to be done and the assessment had not been “extensive enough.”

Months later, Tedros acknowledged it had been “premature” to rule out the lab leak theory so soon and stressed that they needed China’s cooperation with raw data from their labs to help rule out the lab leak theory.

The UN health agency has formed a new team of scientists for a new phase of investigation that included lab audits — which the Chinese government rejected, saying they could not accept needless “repetitive research” when “clear conclusions” had already been reached.

Without a fresh flow of that robust information, the debate over COVID-19’s origins has remained shrouded in a haze of circumstantial evidence.

“The fact is that they’re just not, they’re just not being transparent,” Biden said of China at his news conference earlier this month, adding that he “made it clear” to President Xi Jinping during their November summit that “China had an obligation to be more forthcoming on exactly what the source of the virus was.”

Meanwhile, Beijing has vehemently denied the virus could have come from one of its labs, pressing for the investigation to look outside China. Chinese authorities have suggested, without evidence, that the virus was already spreading in the United States prior to late 2019 — attempting to move the sharp focus on Wuhan’s early viral clusters to a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 came from a U.S. Army lab.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian tweeted in March 2020 that “it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” claiming that American military athletes who attended the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019 could have been responsible for bringing COVID-19 into China.

U.S. Department of Defense officials pushed firmly back on the accusation, calling it “misinformation and disinformation,” and Chad Sbragia, the then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, called claims that the virus began with a U.S. Army service member “patently false and, frankly, unhelpful.”

Experts say it could take years to find COVID-19’s origins, even with full international cooperation and an intact trail of scientific evidence. It took scientists more than a decade to identify the bat population that was the home of a 2002 SARS epidemic.

Even so, they also underscore that understanding where and how this pandemic started may be crucial to preventing the next one.

“Understanding how this terrible crisis began is essential to preventing future pandemics,” the letter said, “and building a safer future for all.”

ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The United States said Thursday it had intelligence that showed Russia is planning to create a video depicting a fake Ukrainian attack, that it could release in order to justify its own invasion of Ukraine.

One of a number of options Russia has been allegedly planning, U.S. officials said, was to “stage a fake attack” against Russia or Russian-speaking people.

“As part of this fake attack, we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses, and actors that would be depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations as well as military equipment,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

The United States took the rare step of making this intelligence public in order to dissuade Russia from moving forward or, if it did move forward, to make it more difficult for it to spread disinformation after the fact, according to Jon Finer, the principal deputy U.S. national security adviser.

“We don’t know definitively that this is the route they’re going to take,” Finer said in an interview with MSNBC.

“But we know that this is an option under consideration,” he continued, “that would involve, you know, actors playing mourners for people who are killed in an event that they would have created themselves, that would involve the deployment of corpses to represent bodies purportedly killed in — people reportedly killed in an incident like this.”

The U.K. said later Wednesday that it had conducted its “own analysis of the intelligence,” and that it had “high confidence that Russia is planning to engineer a pretext blaming Ukraine in order to justify a Russian incursion.”

“This is clear and shocking evidence of Russia’s unprovoked aggression and underhand activity to destabilize Ukraine,” Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said.

It is not the first time in recent weeks that the United States had accused Russia of “fabricating a pretext” to justify invading Ukraine.

The Kremlin on Wednesday denied the new allegations.

“This is not the first such promise,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Russian state news agency TASS “Earlier, similar things were also voiced. But nothing ever occurs.”

Last month, the White House said the U.S. had intelligence that Russia had prepositioned a group of operatives in eastern Ukraine in order to create a “false-flag operation” there. The administration said the group was trained in urban warfare and the use of explosives.

A spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council declined to say whether those the United States is accusing of being involved in creating a fake video were part of this same group.

The U.S. believes Russia has already recruited the people who’d be involved with the fake “attack” video and that “Russian intelligence is intimately involved in this effort,” according to the senior administration official.

The U.S. thinks that “the military equipment used in this fabricated attack will be made to look like it is Ukrainian or from allied nations” – and that it was “possible” that Bayraktar drones, which Ukraine has, would be used to make it look like Ukraine carried out the attack, according to the official.

U.S. officials have repeatedly said, as recently as Wednesday, that they do not believe Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had yet decided whether to invade Ukraine.

But if he did want to move forward, the senior administration official said, one trigger could be Russia recognizing separatist regions in Ukraine as independent, rather than as part of Ukraine. Russia’s parliament is advancing legislation that would do so.

The U.S. believes that if Russia formally recognized the regions as independent, Russia could then release the video showing a fake Ukrainian “attack” – that it could portray as in response to the independence recognition – or Russia could just invade without releasing the video, according to another administration official.

“In line with its previous interventions, Russia would portray its actions as defending ethnic Russians and coming at the request of a sovereign government for assistance,” the senior administration official said.

ABC News’ Matt Seyler, Patrick Reevell and Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday, in remarks from the White House, gave details to the nation about a dramatic U.S. raid overnight in Syria he said had killed the leader of ISIS.

“Last night, operating on my orders, the United States military forces successfully removed in a major terrorist threat to the world, the global leader of ISIS, known as Haji Abdullah. He took over as leader of ISIS in 2019 after the United States counterterrorism operation killed Al Bhaghdadi,” Biden said from the Roosevelt Room. “Thanks to the bravery of our troops, this horrible terrorist leader is no more.”

Amid reports of women and children killed, Biden said he directed the Department of Defense “to take every precaution possible to minimize civilian casualties.”

“Knowing that this terrorist had chosen to surround himself with families, including children, we made a choice to pursue a Special Forces raid at a much greater risk than our to our own people rather than targeting him with an airstrike,” Biden said. “We made this choice to minimize civilian casualties.”

“We do know that as our troops approached to capture the terrorist — in a final act of desperate cowardice he, with no regard to the lives of his own family or others in the building, he chose to blow himself up — not just in the vest but the blow-up that third floor, rather than face justice for the crimes he has committed, taking several members of his family with him. Just as his predecessor did,” Biden said, describing the raid.

Earlier in the day, the White House tweeted a photo it said showed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the Situation Room watching as the raid took place.

The Pentagon also confirmed U.S. special operations forces carried out a what it called a “successful” counterterrorism mission in northwest Syria Wednesday, but provided few other details.

“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria. The mission was successful. There were no U.S. casualties,” said John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, in a statement. “More information will be provided as it becomes available.”

One of the helicopters used in the mission experienced a mechanical problem and then had to be blown up on the ground by U.S. forces, according to a U.S. official.

No details were provided on whether the operation involved ground troops and helicopters, as was claimed in a flurry of social media reports emerging from Syria on Wednesday night.

Social media posts reported possible U.S. military activity in Idlib province, a town in far western Syria, close to the border with Turkey. Some posts included videos that seemed to show night scenes where the sounds of gunfire and low-flying helicopters could be heard near the towns of Atmeh and Dar Ballout.

The opposition-run Syrian Civil Defense, first responders also known as the White Helmets, said 13 civilians were killed as a result of the fighting and blasts that occurred at the raid site, including six children and four women.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war watchdog group based in the United Kingdom, said in a press statement that nine people, including at least two children and a woman, were killed during Wednesday’s mission. The group cited local sources.

A U.S. official, meanwhile, told ABC News that the reported civilian casualties were not the result of U.S. military fire, but occurred when the target of the raid detonated an explosive device at the beginning of the operation.

There are approximately 1,000 U.S. military troops operating in eastern Syria to support the mission against ISIS.

American troops do not operate in government-controlled areas in northwestern Syria, especially in Idlib province, which was an extremist safe haven for much of the last decade. But they have sporadically carried out counterterrorism missions in Idlib, targeting various Islamic extremist groups with drone strikes.

The highest profile mission was a ground raid that killed ISIS’ top leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who was hiding out in a house close to the border with Turkey, on Oct. 27, 2019.

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(NEW YORK) — With the open ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games Friday, the movement to boycott the event has been intensifying with a rising number of protests in recent weeks, as seen lately in Indonesia, Taiwan, Germany, Austria, and Belgium.

Citizens protested to denounce Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government’s propaganda, labor conditions, its treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as its actions to squash freedom of expression and press, among a long list of issues. However, activists and human rights organizations said diplomatic boycotts can only go so far and that so much more needs to be done to improve conditions in China.

Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, told ABC News that human rights-related commitments made by the Chinese government in the past have mostly fallen short despite what it’s said publicly.

“From greater latitude for journalists, to more open internet access, to at least a little bit of room for Chinese people in China to demonstrate … it really failed on all those counts,” Richard said. And “nobody really imposed any consequences and response to that failure.”

The Chinese government often dismisses or denies these claims, as its Commerce Ministry did last year about allegations of forced labor, before saying that the country will “take necessary measures to firmly safeguard Chinese companies’ legitimate rights and interests,” after the U.S. blacklisted 14 Chinese companies.

Though Human Rights Watch, one of the 243 global groups to call for action against China, is in favor of a diplomatic boycott, Richardson said that “in the grand scheme of things, it’s much more important that the governments push ahead with the idea of a U.N.-backed investigation into” possible prosecutions “for crimes against humanity for the Chinese government officials who are credibly alleged to be complicit in these crimes.”

Diplomatic boycotts are “simply not enough,” Mabel Tung, Chair of the NGO Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement (VSSDM), told ABC News.

Tung’s group, along with fellow NGO, the Vancouverites Concerned About Hong Kong, united last week in front of the Canadian Olympics broadcaster, CBC, to encourage people not to watch the Olympics on TV or social media platforms.

By boycotting the Olympics, the group said it’s attacking China’s economy, which can be a more efficient tool than a diplomatic boycott.

The French government is among those who are not boycotting the Olympics and will send two representatives at the games. However, the French National Assembly recently voted to recognize the Uyghur genocide.

These decisions are a “total shame,” Centre-leftist Eurodeputy, and one of the leading voices on the Uyghur’s plight in France, Raphaël Glucksmann, told ABC News.

“If finally in the European institutions, we have been speaking of the torture of the Uyghurs and the crimes of the Chinese Communist Party, it is thanks to these young people,” Glucksmann said.

Activists, like 22-year-old Hongkongese-American and policy advisor of U.K.-based charity Hong Kong Watch Joey Siu, are further proof that the youth has been a driving force in this fight as seen in the many protests worldwide.

“When we’re talking about a genocide, there has to be a red line,” Siu told ABC News.

Siu said a diplomatic boycott is “only the most basic” first step and that “in the long term, what’s more important is that countries should really be formulating policies to tackle the genocide, to tackle China and hold China accountable for its human rights abuses.” She pointed to the U.S. and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act the country passed weeks ago as a good example of holding China accountable.

Human Rights Watch estimates that “as many as a million Uyghurs and others” have been arbitrarily detained in Xinjiang over the last several years.

Zumretay Arkin, an Uyghur-Canadian human rights advocate and program manager at the World Uyghur Congress, an international organization that represents the collective interest of the Uyghur people in East Turkistan and abroad, shared Siu’s enthusiasm for actions beyond boycotts.

Speaking of the “genocide” in East Turkistan, the 28-year-old Arkin called the situation “extremely dire.”

Her organization launched a boycott campaign a year and a half ago, and also reached out to multiple Olympic sponsors but “none of them really responded.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said Thursday that a U.S. raid in Syria killed the leader of ISIS.

“Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies, and make the world a safer place,” he said in a statement. “Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi—the leader of ISIS. All Americans have returned safely from the operation. I will deliver remarks to the American people later this morning. May God protect our troops.”

The White House tweeted a photo it said showed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the Situation Room watching as the raid took place.

Earlier, the Pentagon has confirmed U.S. special operations forces carried out a what it called a “successful” counterterrorism mission in northwest Syria Wednesday, but provided few other details.

“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of U.S. Central Command conducted a counterterrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria. The mission was successful. There were no U.S. casualties,” said John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, in a statement. “More information will be provided as it becomes available.”

One of the helicopters used in the mission experienced a mechanical problem and then had to be blown up on the ground by U.S. forces, according to a U.S. official.

No details were provided on whether it involved ground troops and helicopters as was claimed in a flurry of social media reports emerging from Syria on Wednesday night.

ABC Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce reported that a source familiar with the situation said any reported civilian casualties resulted from the target or a family member detonating an explosive device at the beginning of the operation, not from U.S. forces.

The social media posts reported possible U.S. military activity in Idlib province, a town in far western Syria, close to the border with Turkey. Some posts included videos that seemed to show night scenes where the sounds of gunfire and low-flying helicopters could be heard near the towns of Atimah and Dar Ballout.

The approximately 1,000 U.S. military troops in Syria operate in eastern Syria supporting the mission against ISIS.

American troops do not operate in government-controlled areas in northwestern Syria, especially in Idlib province, which was an extremist safe haven for much of the last decade. But they have sporadically carried out counterterrorism missions in Idlib, targeting various Islamic extremist groups with drone strikes.

The highest profile mission was a ground raid that killed ISIS’ top leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who was hiding out in a house close to the border with Turkey, on Oct. 27, 2019.

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(LONDON) — “Pick up the phone right now, call Kabul and ask the girls to be released immediately,” Hoda Khamosh, an Afghanistan woman’s rights activist shouted at the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Oslo, Norway, last week.

Khamosh demanded the release of Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel, two female activists who disappeared after their houses were raided on Jan. 20. They had attended a series of protests against the Taliban over the past few months.

Khamosh was one of six Afghan women who were invited to sit with Taliban officials as they made their first invited visit to a Western country since taking control of Afghanistan in August. The talks were to discuss the humanitarian and economic situation in Afghanistan.

The invitation led to different reactions from Afghanistan’s various women’s rights activists, with some welcoming it as a chance for Afghan-to-Afghan negotiations. Others felt that Taliban rule should not be normalized by holding such meetings and casted doubts on the trustworthiness of their promises.

“It was important to us that Norway stressed the invitation did not mean recognition of the Taliban,” Khamosh told ABC News, explaining how the “horrible humanitarian situation” in Afghanistan compelled her to sit face-to-face with the Taliban, pushing for a way to get as many concessions from them as possible.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, around 10 million children across Afghanistan are in “urgent” need to humanitarian assistance to survive.

“Without urgent action, almost one million children could be severely malnourished in the coming weeks. That is half of all children under the age of 5,” UNICEF says.

“We were discussing how the money can come to Afghanistan and help with opening schools, opening offices, creating jobs and making the economy wheels turn,” Khamosh said.

However, the Taliban’s track record of female suppression has left many women’s rights activists with almost no reason to trust their promises.

“It is why my first request in the beginning of the meeting with the Taliban was to release our fellow activists they had arrested,” Khamosh said.

In the statement released by the governments of the U.S. and Norway about the Oslo meeting, the Taliban was “urged” to do more to stop the alarming increase of human rights violations, “including arbitrary detentions (to include recent detentions of women’s rights activists), forced disappearances, media crackdowns, extra-judicial killings, torture and prohibitions on women and girls’ education, employment and freedom to travel without a male escort.”

However, the acting foreign minister Muttaqi denied the arrests of the activists for whom Khamosh demanded freedom, saying that the Taliban had not arrested or tortured those women.

“I do not trust him,” Khamosh said, reacting to Mottaqi’s denial. She said she’d been handed documents by one of the women’s mothers that showed the women had been taken by the Taliban.

“This is why the west should not give all the money the Taliban wants in one go and not to give it directly to them,” she said. “We have to wait and see the Taliban’s next move and real intention to fulfil their promises first.”

Former Afghan parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail, who shared the same concerns as Khamosh, said the Taliban must end its hostilities against women and take a moderate approach towards human rights, as many things have changed since the last time they had the control of the country.

Karokhail advocated for women’s rights during her term, but had to flee Afghanistan when the country fell into the Taliban’s hands.

“Two decades has passed and lots of changes happened in the life of Afghans,” she said, adding that the Taliban has no way but to end isolating women from their social an economic life of Afghanistan.

The Taliban did not respond to ABC News’ inquiry about the Oslo talks and the topics discussed.

Karokhail said she feels the West must ask the Taliban to prove themselves before entering into talks, telling ABC News: “We have to use this Oslo event like a ticket. A ticket that must not be used so much.”

ABC News’ Aleem Agha contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has ordered U.S. troop deployments to reassure NATO allies amid the standoff with Russia over Ukraine.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced the imminent arrival of several thousand U.S. troops — some already in Europe and some from the U.S. — to NATO allies in eastern Europe at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday — the first major movement of U.S. forces in response to concerns Russia will invade Ukraine.

“President Biden has been clear that the United States will respond to the growing threat to Europe’s security and stability. Our commitment to NATO Article 5 and collective defense remains ironclad. As part of this commitment and to be prepared for a range of contingencies, the United States will soon move additional forces to Romania, Poland, and Germany,” Kirby said.

All of the troops would be under U.S. command.

“I want to be very clear about something. These are not permanent moves. They are moved designed to respond to the current security environment. Moreover, these forces are not going to fight in Ukraine. They are going to ensure the robust defense of our NATO allies,” he added.

A senior defense official had earlier confirmed to ABC News that about 3,000 U.S. troops will be given orders to deploy to Europe or, if they’re already in Europe, to head to countries in eastern Europe.

One of the units moving into eastern Europe from Germany is an armored Stryker unit.

“It’s important that we send a strong signal to Mr. Putin and frankly, to the world that NATO matters to the United States. It matters to our allies, and we have ironclad Article 5 commitments attack on one is an attack on all,” Kirby said.

The troop movements are separate from the 8,500 U.S. troops put on “heightened alert” to reinforce NATO’s Response Force if needed — and none would go to Ukraine.

Pressed on what signal it sends that the U.S. is not waiting for a NATO vote to deploy an alliance force, Kirby said “the signal that sends — that we’re that we’re moving additional U.S. forces into allied territory, at the request and with the invitation of those countries — is that we take our NATO commitments very, very seriously.”

Kirby said 1,000 soldiers based in Germany will arrive in Romania in “the coming days” at the request of the country, augmenting the roughly 900 U.S. troops already in Romania. Another 2,000 troops from Fort Bragg in North Carolina will deploy to Poland and Germany, most to Poland.

“The 82nd Airborne Division is deploying components of an Infantry Brigade Combat Team and key enablers to Poland. And the 18th Airborne Corps is moving a joint task force capable headquarters to Germany. Both of them as you know are based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina,” Kirby said.

The announcement comes after Biden told reporters on Friday that he would be moving American forces “in the near term.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the escalating tensions on the U.S. and the West for having “ignored” Russia’s key demand that NATO bar Ukraine from joining the organization. The U.S. and NATO allies argue Russia is the aggressor, having already invaded Crimea and massing troops at the border.

This a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(JERUSALEM)– While Israeli’s president Isaac Herzog was in Abu Dhabi on a historic visit on Monday, United Arab Emirates officials announced that a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels had been intercepted, the third such attack in three weeks.

Tensions between the two countries have escalated as the Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for a Jan. 15 drone-and-missile attack on the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot, killing three people and wounding six. It was the first deadly attack since 2018, when the UAE-backed forces were fighting the Houthis for control of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

“The operation led to a large number of death and wounded, including Emiratis,” Yahya Sare’e, spokesman of the Houthis, tweeted on Tuesday.

A Saudi-led coalition retaliated the day after with an airstrike on Yemen, killing about 80 people.

In 2020, the UAE and Bahrain signed U.S.-brokered normalization agreements with Israel, known as the “Abraham Accords.” Iran and its regional allies, including the Houthis, were among their shared security concerns. Iran, meanwhile, denounced any normalization of relations with Israel.

“The Islamic republic of Iran not only condemns what some countries are doing aiming at normalization, but also believes that those countries should listen to awakening calls by their own people and stop sowing discord in the Muslim and Arab world. This will be much better for the region’s future,” spokesman of Iran’s foreign ministry Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday, according to the Tasnim News Agency.

Yemeni minister of information Dhaif Allah Al-Shami, also made clear his country’s similar stance.

“Every country has its own way of welcoming the leaders of the Zionist entity [Israel], and we in Yemen have only done our duty,” he said on Twitter.

Zakaria Al-Qaq, an expert in national security and war studies, told ABC News the Houthi attack on the UAE coinciding with the Israeli president’s visit had a clear message: “To stop the UAE intervention in Yemen.”

“Second, it’s not only a rejection to the Israel Emirates relation but also a threat to Yemeni National Security, because [of] the security coordination between the two countries,” he added.

Houthis have declared they would continue to fire rockets into the UAE.

“The armed forces affirm that the state of the Emirati enemy will be an unsafe as long as the tools of the Israeli enemy in Abu Dhabi and Dubai continue to launch aggression against our people and our country,” Sare’e wrote in another tweet.

The Houthi spokesman has also repeated threats, telling citizens, residents and companies in the UAE “to stay away from vital headquarters and facilities, as they are vulnerable to targeting during the coming period.”

People in the already war-worn Yemen have been going through a difficult humanitarian situation over the past years. The World Food Programme has warned that more than five million people are on the verge of famine, with 50,000 others now living in famine-like conditions.

The spate of recent attacks have helped raise crude oil prices above $90 per barrel, another worry for a global economy already struggling through the pandemic.

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(LONDON) — Duchess Kateis taking over two patronages her brother-in-law Prince Harry relinquished when he and his wife, Duchess Meghan, stepped down from their senior royal roles.

Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, will become the patron of the Rugby Football League and the Rugby Football Union, Kensington Palace announced Wednesday.

“These new patronages, which have been given to The Duchess by Her Majesty The Queen, closely align with Her Royal Highness’ longstanding passion for sport and the lifelong benefits it can provide,” the palace said in a statement.

Rugby apparently played a large role in Kate’s upbringing in Berkshire, England, with her parents and two siblings. Kate, 40, is the wife of Prince William.

Kate’s sister, Pippa Middleton, told Vanity Fair in 2014, “Rugby was a big thing in our family. We’d plan our weekends around the matches.”

Kate’s new role as patron of the two rugby organizations comes two years after Harry and Meghan stepped down from their senior royal roles in 2020.

The couple, who now live in California with their two young children, agreed at the time to give up all their royal patronages.

The rugby patronages are the first of Harry’s to be redistributed to another member of the royal family. None of Meghan’s patronages have yet to be redistributed.

“Harry is a big rugby fan and the patronage was a natural fit for him,” said ABC News royal contributor Victoria Murphy. “I think it was pretty clear that he had wanted to retain those links when he stepped back.”

She added, “We’re now seeing the reality of Harry and Meghan having handed back their patronages is that things are moving on and the working royals are stepping into those roles and continuing the work.”

Both the Rugby Football League and the Rugby Football Union said they are honored to have Duchess Kate as their new patron.

“We look forward to working with The Duchess in the years to come, and I know all levels of our sport will welcome her to the Rugby League family,” Ralph Rimmer, chief executive of the Rugby Football League, the national governing body for Rugby League in the United Kingdom, said in a statement.

“The Duchess will be greatly valued from our grassroots clubs and fast-growing women and girls’ game, right up to our elite Men’s and Women’s England teams,” added Bill Sweeney, chief executive of the Rugby Football Union, the national governing body for grassroots and elite rugby union in England.

Kate, who played tennis, hockey and sailing as a kid, is also the royal patron of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, the home of Wimbledon, a role she took over from Queen Elizabeth in 2016.

Her other sports-related patronages include SportsAid, a charity that helps young athletes, The Lawn Tennis Association and The 1851 Trust, an education charity that teaches kids about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) through sailing.

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