America has deployed extra combat jets to cover the withdrawal of its last troops from Afghanistan as the pullout forges on during heavy Taliban assaults on Afghan forces.
As they leave, the Americans are carefully stripping once-busy military sites of anything of value, a clear sign that soon the Afghans will be on their own.
At Kandahar airfield in the south of the country, there is almost nothing left of what was once a wartime city, with its famed and much derided boardwalk that housed snack shops, chain restaurants, a hockey rink and trinket stores.
Tens of thousands of troops were based there. Now the gym is half-demolished, the passenger terminal’s chairs gather dust, and the boardwalk is bare. Anything expensive that is too big to be taken home is destroyed to prevent it being sold off and fuelling corruption.
“Now, this is what really upsets me,” Major Mohammed Bashir Zahid, an officer in charge of a small Afghan air command centre, told The New York Times, pointing to a picture on his phone of a wrecked SUV.
To ease the transition, a dozen F-18 planes have been put on standby in the region, along with six B-52 long-range bombers, to provide air support for the end of America’s campaign.
After heavy fighting in the western suburbs of Helmand’s capital this week, the Pentagon said the militants were launching 80 to 120 attacks on Afghan government targets each day. A series of bases were said to be overrun in the northern province of Baghlan on Thursday and the country’s second biggest dam was taken by the militants in Kandahar province.
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said US forces had not yet been hit during the withdrawal, which President Joe Biden says will be complete by September.
America has a little over 3,000 troops to bring home, and hundreds of British troops based in Kabul will also be withdrawn as part of the international military departure.
The withdrawal is proceeding smoothly despite the violence, officials say, with the equivalent of more than 60 C-17 cargo planes’ worth of equipment having left.
“Less than one week in, the drawdown is going according to plan,” Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said.
While the pullout continues, American generals have decided they need to briefly increase the firepower available in case the situation worsens.
How Afghan forces will hold up on their own is one of the biggest questions hanging over the operation.
American generals have admitted they may struggle against an onslaught by the Taliban, which has been buoyed by the US withdrawal after nearly 20 years. Afghan forces continue to take heavy casualties, and corruption and Taliban attacks on roads have undermined the military’s logistics and often made it difficult to relieve or resupply bases in swathes of the country.
“We’re hopeful that the Afghan security forces will play a major role in stopping the Taliban,” Gen Austin said.
“What we’re seeing unfold is what we expected to unfold: increased pressure” on the Afghan forces, he said.
Billions of dollars have been poured into the Afghan army and police, but they remain reliant on US air support and intelligence.
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]