Hundreds of Taliban fighters were killed in fierce battles with Afghan government forces across several provinces of Afghanistan, officials said yesterday, as Washington announced that it would finish withdrawing its troops from the country by the end of next month.
Washington’s announcement came after all US and NATO troops vacated their main Bagram Air Base, from where the coalition forces led operations for two decades against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies. Over the past 24 hours, more than 300 Taliban fighters were killed in fighting with government forces, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said.
Scores were killed in airstrikes, including a pre-dawn assault yesterday, in the southern Helmand Province, where the insurgents and government troops have regularly clashed.
There have been fears that Afghan forces would struggle without the air support that the US has provided.
“In recent days, the Afghan air force has intensified its airstrikes against the Taliban hideouts and the insurgents have suffered casualties,” Helmand provincial council member Attaullah Afghan told reporters.
The Taliban rejected the government’s claims.
Both sides often exaggerate each other’s casualties and their claims are difficult to independently verify.
However, since May 1, when the US military began its final withdrawal of about 2,500 troops, the two warring sides have clashed fiercely across the rugged countryside.
As a result, the Taliban have seized dozens of districts in blistering assaults targeting government forces.
Even as the fighting rages, the Pentagon has pressed on with its withdrawal to end the US’ longest war.
On Friday, all US and NATO troops left Bagram Air Base, signaling that the military involvement for coalition forces was finally nearing its end.
Over the years, the mini-city north of Kabul has been visited by hundreds of thousands of US and NATO service members and contractors. It has great military and symbolic significance.
“For many Afghans, Bagram is remembered as the hub for more than one foreign intervention, as it was the main air base for the Soviets throughout their occupation of the country as well,” said Andrew Watkins, an Afghanistan expert at the International Crisis Group.
“Not only has it been the entry point of most foreign troops that have passed through the country since 2001, it has been home to many of the in-country air assets that have lent the Afghan security forces such a vital advantage on the battlefield,” Watkins said.
The exit of foreign troops from Bagram has further fueled concerns that the country might slide into a new civil war, as in the 1990s after the Soviets left.
“I see history repeating. The Americans are doing the same what the Russians did. They are going without ending the war,” Kabul resident Dawood Hotak said. “I feel our country will slide back into another civil war as the Taliban have intensified their attacks and the Americans are exiting.”
At the White House on Friday, US President Joe Biden attempted to ease these concerns.
He said the US military is keeping an “over the horizon capacity,” which could bring firepower to help the Afghan government and its forces if needed.
Media reports have said the Pentagon would probably retain about 600 troops in Afghanistan to guard the vast US diplomatic compound in Kabul.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also said that the exit of foreign troops from Bagram did not mean that the overall withdrawal of foreign forces would be completed within days.
Foreign troops would be out of Afghanistan “by the end of August,” she said, closer to the Sept. 11 deadline set by Biden.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS