The US left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away within the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure quite two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said.
Afghanistan’s army showed off the sprawling air station on Monday, providing a rare first glimpse of what had been the epicenter of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and seek out the Al Qaeda perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on America.
“We (heard) some rumors that the Americans had left Bagram … and eventually by seven o’clock within the morning, we understood that it had been confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” Gen Mir Asadullah Kohistani, Bagram’s new commander said.
US military spokesman Col Sonny Leggett didn’t address the precise complaints of the many Afghan soldiers who inherited the abandoned airfield, instead pertaining to a press release last week.
The statement said the handover of the various bases had been within the process soon after President Joe Biden’s mid-April announcement that America was withdrawing the last of its forces. Leggett said within the statement that they had coordinated their departures with Afghanistan’s leaders.
Before the Afghan army could take hold of the airfield, about an hour’s drive from the Afghan capital Kabul, it had been invaded by a little army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, consistent with Afghan military officials.
“At first we thought maybe they were Taliban,” said Abdul Raouf, a soldier of 10 years. He said the US called from the Kabul airport and said “we are here at the airport in Kabul”.
Kohistani insisted the Afghan National Security and defense could hold on to the heavily fortified base despite a string of Taliban wins on the battlefield. The airfield also includes a jail with about 5,000 prisoners, many of them allegedly Taliban.
The Taliban’s latest surge comes because the last US and Nato forces pull out of the country. As of last week, most Nato soldiers had already quietly left. The last US soldiers are likely to stay until an agreement to guard the Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport, which is predicted to be done by Turkey, is completed.
Meanwhile, in northern Afghanistan, district after the district has fallen to the Taliban. in only the last two days many Afghan soldiers fled across the border into Tajikistan instead of fight the insurgents.
In battle it’s sometimes one breakthrough and a few steps back said Kohistani.
He said the Afghan military was changing its strategy to specialize in the strategic districts. He insisted they might retake them within the coming days without saying how that might be accomplished.
On display on Monday was a huge facility, the dimensions of a little city, that had been exclusively employed by the US and Nato.
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