AGL 40.00 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
AIRLINK 132.66 Increased By ▲ 3.13 (2.42%)
BOP 6.89 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (3.14%)
CNERGY 4.57 Decreased By ▼ -0.06 (-1.3%)
DCL 8.92 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-0.22%)
DFML 42.75 Increased By ▲ 1.06 (2.54%)
DGKC 84.00 Increased By ▲ 0.23 (0.27%)
FCCL 32.90 Increased By ▲ 0.13 (0.4%)
FFBL 77.06 Increased By ▲ 1.59 (2.11%)
FFL 12.20 Increased By ▲ 0.73 (6.36%)
HUBC 110.01 Decreased By ▼ -0.54 (-0.49%)
HUMNL 14.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.16 (-1.1%)
KEL 5.53 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (2.6%)
KOSM 8.32 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.95%)
MLCF 39.67 Decreased By ▼ -0.12 (-0.3%)
NBP 65.50 Increased By ▲ 5.21 (8.64%)
OGDC 198.74 Decreased By ▼ -0.92 (-0.46%)
PAEL 26.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.65 (-2.44%)
PIBTL 7.62 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.52%)
PPL 159.00 Increased By ▲ 1.08 (0.68%)
PRL 26.24 Decreased By ▼ -0.49 (-1.83%)
PTC 18.35 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-0.6%)
SEARL 82.24 Decreased By ▼ -0.20 (-0.24%)
TELE 8.12 Decreased By ▼ -0.19 (-2.29%)
TOMCL 34.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-0.32%)
TPLP 8.98 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.88%)
TREET 16.88 Decreased By ▼ -0.59 (-3.38%)
TRG 59.49 Decreased By ▼ -1.83 (-2.98%)
UNITY 27.52 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (0.33%)
WTL 1.40 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (1.45%)
BR100 10,614 Increased By 206.9 (1.99%)
BR30 31,874 Increased By 160.5 (0.51%)
KSE100 98,972 Increased By 1644 (1.69%)
KSE30 30,784 Increased By 591.7 (1.96%)
World

Western forces pack up to end their war, Afghans ‘manage the consequences’

  • Violence escalates as foreign forces race to leave Afghanistan
  • US-NATO drawdown triggers a sense of abandonment among Afghans
  • Afghan forces defend country alone against Taliban
Published July 1, 2021

KABUL: Afghan scrap dealers are picking over the detritus of the two-decade US military intervention in Afghanistan, collecting whatever they can of value from heaps of broken military hardware, scrapped machines and old furniture.

While the scrap men search through junk outside the main US base in Afghanistan, the Afghan government, and the country as a whole, are having to face up to the end of an international mission that promised so much but failed to bring peace.

"There's just so much waste," said scrap dealer Abdul Ahmad, outside the Bagram Airfield, about 50 km (31 miles) north of the capital, Kabul, as he surveyed the pickings.

"They didn't do anything for us since they came and now they're leaving us with an uncertain future and so much destruction."

Over Afghanistan's decades of war, the Bagram air base has been a grand prize for whoever holds the upper hand in the fight.

Now US forces will hand it over to Afghan government forces as they face a surging war with the Taliban and questions swirl about their prospects.

Guards in body armour still control the heavily fortified entrance to Bagram - a favourite target for suicide bombers over the years - and helicopters clatter overhead and an occasional truck comes and goes.

But few people remain in the expanse of prefab facilities that grew up alongside the giant runway in the months and years after international forces arrived in late 2001, as the defeated Taliban fled from US bombers to mountains on the Pakistani border.

Two US security officials said this week the majority of US military personnel would most likely be gone by July 4, with a residual force remaining to protect the embassy.

Many Afghans, like Ahmad, feel abandoned.

Last month, US President Joe Biden told his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani, that "Afghans are going to have to decide their future, what they want".

Ghani said his job was now to "manage the consequences" of the US withdrawal.

This week, General Austin Miller, the top UScommander in Afghanistan, acknowledged the rapid loss of several districts to the Taliban was worrisome. Only "a political settlement" could establish peace among the warring Afghan sides, he said.

'Trail of destruction'

America's allies, most of them NATO members, who have been supporting its efforts in Afghanistan are also packing up and getting out at the end of a mission that at its height was hailed as a worthy example of NATO unity and cooperation, and as a model for its operations.

The German military this week concluded its withdrawal, finishing Germany's deadliest military mission since World War Two.

In northern Afghanistan, Camp Marmal was the biggest German armed forces base outside their homeland. Its once bustling cafes, gyms, salon, handicraft shops, hospital and entertainment zones are all shut.

German forces shipped home the equivalent of about 800 containers of equipment including armoured vehicles, helicopters, weapons and ammunition. Even a 27-tonne war memorial was shipped to the German armed forces' joint operations command in Potsdam.

The base has been handed over to Afghan forces.

Brigadier General Ansgar Meyer, the commander of German forces in Afghanistan, told Reuters in an interview before the German's withdrawal that the hospitality of the Afghan people under the most difficult circumstances was something everyone could learn from.

"This is still one of the poorest countries in the world but the immense friendliness with which Afghans welcome anyone is amazing," he said. "These are characteristic traits that we in Europe might want to copy."

For the Taliban, fighting since 2001 to expel foreign forces, the departure of their enemies cannot come soon enough.

"Wherever the invaders have gone they leave a trail of destruction," Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said of Western forces, adding that the Taliban remained on guard in case of any last-minute deception.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Programme at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, said concrete gains were made over the two decades: "The removal of a brutal regime, the degrading of al Qaeda, and improvements in women's rights."

"But at the end of the day, the balance sheet on the NATO mission is sad and sobering. And the Afghan people that will pay the biggest price," he said.

Comments

Comments are closed.