US FORCES IN KABUL HAND OVER KEY MILITARY BASE TO AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY

Fri 28 May 2021:

The top NATO Commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller, on Friday oversaw handing over of a key military base in the capital Kabul to the Afghan forces as the US continued with the withdrawal amid surging violence in the country.

“The ‘New Kabul Compound’ was submitted from US to MoD [Ministry of Defense] in a ceremony… General Miller, emphasized the international community’s commitment to continue financial and security force assistance to Afghan forces,” tweeted the Afghan Defense Ministry.

As per the US Central Command, since President Joe Biden’s decision, the Pentagon has retrograded the equivalent of approximately 160 C-17 loads of material out of Afghanistan and have turned over more than 10,000 pieces of equipment to the Defense Logistics Agency for disposition. Also, the US had by last week officially handed over five facilities to the Afghan Ministry of Defense with which it has completed up to 25% of the entire retrograde process.

Around 2,300 U.S. troops have lost their lives and more than 20,000 have been wounded since the U.S. toppled the ruling Taliban in 2001 after it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda and the architect of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

More than 100,000 Afghan civilians have also been killed or injured since 2009, when the United Nations began systematically documenting the impact of the war on civilians.

FILE PHOTO