[ad_1]
Nearly 20 years later, the U.S. military has left Afghanistan’s Bagram air base to oust the Taliban and hunt down the perpetrators of the 11/11 attacks on Al-Qaeda perpetrators, two U.S. officials said.
The air base was handed over to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces in its entirety, saying on Friday that they were not allowed to spread the information to the media on condition of anonymity, The Associated Press reported.
One official said General Austin S Miller, the U.S. commander-in-chief of Afghanistan, “still retains all the capabilities and authority to protect the forces.”
At its peak, the Bagram air base saw more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers from its vast complex 50 km (30 miles) north of the capital Kabul.
An Afghan official said the base would be officially handed over to the government at a ceremony on Saturday, the Reuters news agency reported.
Taking off from the air base is the clearest indication that the last of the 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops have left or are nearing departure from Afghanistan, just months before President Joe Biden promised to leave on September 11th.
After the mid-April announcement, it was clear that the U.S. was ending its “perpetual war,” with the departure of U.S. troops and 7,000 NATO allies around them closer to July 4, when the country celebrates Independence Day.
Most NATO troops have already left Afghanistan as of this week.
According to announcements from several countries analyzed by The Associated Press, the majority of European troops went with few ceremonies – a stark contrast to the dramatic and public display of strength and unity when NATO allies backed the US invasion in 2001.
The U.S. has declined to say when the last troops will leave Afghanistan, citing security concerns, but also the protection of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, which is still being negotiated. Turkish and U.S. soldiers are currently protecting the airport.
The U.S. will have about 6,500 troops to protect its embassy in the Afghan capital. It is understood that their presence will be included in a bilateral agreement with the Afghan government.
The U.S. and NATO are leaving Afghanistan as Taliban fighters take steps in various parts of the country, crossing dozens of districts and being persecuted by Afghan security forces.
In a worrying development, the government has revived militias with a history of brutal violence to help Afghan security forces.
With all the features of the last press conference, General Miller warned this week that continued violence is endangering the civil war in Afghanistan that should worry the world.
Last month, Biden told his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani that “Afghans will have to decide their future, what they want.”
Ghani said his job now is to “manage the effects” of the U.S. withdrawal.
The agreement with the Taliban on the US withdrawal was made by the administration of former President Donald Trump.
In exchange for a U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban have promised that an armed group will prevent international attacks from Afghanistan.
The group has also pledged to start talks with its Afghan rivals, but little progress has been made in negotiations.
Full of symbolism
The US exit is full of symbolism. It is not at least the second time that an invader in Afghanistan has passed through Bagram.
The airport was built in the 1950s by the former Soviet Union. When he invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to protect the communist government, it became his main base and from there he would defend the occupation of the country.
For 10 years, the Soviets fought US-backed “mujahideen,” then-president Ronald Reagan named freedom fighters, whom he saw as a front-line force in one of the last Cold War battles.
When the US and NATO inherited Bagram in 2001, they found it in ruins, a collection of crushed buildings, dug by rockets and howitzers, damaging most of the perimeter fences.
It was abandoned in the fighting between the Taliban and the warlords who were fleeing to the northern enclaves.
The huge base has two tracks. The last one, 3,660 meters long, was built in 2006 and cost $ 96 million. There are 110 decorations, mostly parking spaces for aircraft, protected by explosion walls.
GlobalSecurity, a security thinker, says Bagram has three large hangars, a control tower and plenty of support buildings.
The base has a 50-bed hospital with a trauma bay, three operating rooms and a modern dental clinic. In another section is the prison, which is terrifying and frightening among Afghans.
[ad_2]
Source link
