Afghan anger over US’s sudden, silent Bagram departure
US forces plunged their main operating base in Afghanistan into darkness and abandoned it to looters when they slipped away in the middle of the night after two decades at the site without notifying their Afghan allies.
The furtive departure from Bagram airbase, which is vital to the security of Kabul and holds about 5,000 mostly Taliban prisoners, infuriated the Afghans. Many saw it as emblematic of a withdrawal they say is being carried out entirely to fit an American political schedule, with no heed for the collapsing security situation on the ground.
“People are saying: ‘The Americans didn’t ask Afghans about coming here, and they didn’t consult Afghans about leaving’,” said one senior official.
Much of northern Afghanistan, once an anti-Taliban stronghold, has fallen to the group in the last two weeks, and the militants have made substantial advances across the rest of the country. Afghanistan has just over 400 districts, and the Taliban now hold nearly half, and are fighting for many more.
The new commander of Bagram airbase, Gen Mir Asadullah Kohistani, only discovered the Americans’ had gone several hours after their 3am departure.
“We did not know of their timeline for departure. They did not tell us when they left,” the commander said during a tour of the evacuated and now-looted base.
“We [heard] some rumour that the Americans had left Bagram … and finally by 7am we understood that it was confirmed,” Kohistani told the Associated Press.
They had turned off the electricity on the way out, and the sudden darkness served as a signal to the looters, said Abdul Raouf, a soldier of 10 years who has also served in Taliban strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
The looters entered from the north, smashing through the first barrier, ransacking buildings, loading anything that was not nailed down into trucks, he told the AP. Another soldier said the US forces’ stealthy departure had thrown away 20 years of goodwill.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday that the exact moment of the departure “was not divulged for operational security purposes. In general we felt it was better to keep that information as closely held as possible.”
He added: “It’s not a statement about whether we trust or don’t trust our Afghan partners.”
There was already widespread anger in Afghanistan about comments by US President Joe Biden over the weekend, when he shrugged off questions about the end of the US presence in Afghanistan by saying he wanted to talk about “happy things” over the Fourth of July holiday instead.
Both US and UK troops had been expected to end their missions in the country at the weekend, bar a handful of American forces staying on to guard the embassy in Kabul.
But as district after district fell to the Taliban, Washington appeared to have an abrupt change of heart about the optics of finalising a withdrawal – and one that increasingly looks like a defeat to the resurgent Taliban – on one of the country’s most important holidays.
Biden’s spokesperson, Jen Psaki, has since said that the withdrawal is likely to be completed in August. The UK followed the American lead, blaming “mixed messaging” for briefings that it would also bring the final regular troops home on 4 July.
Both countries are reportedly considering keeping special forces troops in the country to support the fight against the Taliban and Isis.
But with Bagram and its two runways no longer in American hands, the main US mission in Afghanistan is in effect over already. The Pentagon said in a statement on Tuesday that the withdrawal was more than 90% completed.
The new details of last week’s secretive withdrawal under cover of darkness came as Afghan authorities deployed hundreds of commandos and pro-government militias on Tuesday to counter the Taliban’s blistering offensive in the north, a day after more than 1,000 government troops fled into neighbouring Tajikistan.
The government has sent reinforcements including special forces to provincial capitals now effectively besieged by the Taliban, and vowed to fight back.
But the scale of collapse has left many people, even in the still relatively secure capital, questioning how long the government can hold out, and fearful of what further Taliban advances will mean for them and their families.
Vast queues outside the passport office every morning, mostly of people looking to flee abroad, are testament to rising fear.
With 3,000 troops under his command, Kohistani’s forces at Bagram are far smaller than the US military presence at the base during its heyday when Bagram resembled a small, if heavily militarised, town with its coffee shops, sports facilities, fast food chains and even a cinema.
It was the gateway to the Afghan war for tens of thousands of American troops, and for some all they ever saw of the country.
Kohistani said the US left behind 3.5m objects, all itemised by the departing military. They include tens of thousands of water bottles, energy drinks and military ready-made meals.
They also include thousands of civilian vehicles, many of them without keys to start them, and hundreds of armoured vehicles. Kohistani said the US also left behind small weapons and the ammunition for them, but the departing troops took away heavy weapons and destroyed ammunition for those weapons.
On Monday, three days after the US departure, Afghan soldiers were still collecting piles of rubbish that included empty water bottles, cans and empty energy drinks left behind by the looters.