Tag Archives: Hamid Karzai Airport

There Is Some Irony Here

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Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about one aspect of America’s surrender to the Taliban.

The article reports:

The Taliban are “feeling angry and betrayed Wednesday” after discovering that helicopters, left by the United States military after they officially pulled out of Kabul, Afghanistan, do not work and, in some cases, were deliberately rendered inoperable before the military departed, Fox News said.

An Al Jazeera reporter spoke with Taliban fighters after they entered the formerly American side of Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), and posted a video of the event to various social media networks, said that the Taliban fighters expected the U.S. to leave their equipment in full working order, though it is not clear whether the U.S. made any such promises.

It’s okay–the Chinese will reverse engineer them and solve the problem.

The article continued:

“An Al Jazeera reporter who toured a hanger on the military side of the airport said in a video that the terrorist group ‘expected the Americans to leave helicopters like this in one piece for their use,’” Fox reported.

“When I said to them, ‘why do you think that the Americans would have left everything operational for you’? They said because we believe it is a national asset and we are the government now and this could have come to great use for us,” the Al Jazeera reporter said in her video.

Photos of the equipment posted to social media, which appear to be of the helicopters and other aircraft left behind after the American withdrawal, show smashed indicators and gauges and destroyed control panels. The photos also seem to show that the U.S. military removed guns and other weapons from helicopters before leaving.

…The Washington Post noted Tuesday that, although initial reports said that the Taliban seized $85 billion in equipment left by American forces, that number accounts for all of the money expended to assist the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) since 2001.

Using a percentage provided by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Post reported that the “equipment provided to Afghan forces amounted to $24 billion over 20 years. The GAO said approximately 70 percent of the equipment went to the Afghan military and the rest went to the national police (part of the Interior Ministry).”

It is not clear how much of that equipment ended up in the hands of the Taliban. “With great fanfare, the Taliban has seized a number of Black Hawk helicopters, including ones that the United States had just shipped this year at the request of former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani,” the Post added, noting that the Taliban does not have many qualified pilots and that they targeted Afghan military pilots for execution before taking Kabul.

Upon leaving, CENTCOM said, “the military ‘demilitarized’ 70 MRAPs, 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft,” likely including those helicopters the Taliban is now reportedly angry about.

I hope CENTCOM is telling the truth. Demilitarizing some of the equipment left behind would have been one of the few sensible things done during the evacuation.

What IS Possible

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Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about the rescue of a Washington Post reporter in Afghanistan.

The article reports:

A Washington Post reporter has shared how British troops helped her and friends flee Afghanistan – as pressure mounts over US forces’ continued refusal to leave Kabul airport.    

Susannah George told of how she and the paper’s Afghan staff were able to latch on to a separate evacuation led by UK troops, after spotting them and asking for help to flee. 

That saw them hurriedly travel along a road to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport in armored cars driven by private security guards.

Those roads were being guarded from Taliban interference by UK service personnel, before making it to the security gate of the airport itself, which was manned by American troops. 

George did not offer further comment on the troops who helped save her, but the UK’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) have been drafted in to rescue Britons trapped in the war-torn country.

Her difficult journey contradicts President Biden’s assertion that anyone with an American passports would be allowed through checkpoints. 

Her story also illustrates the fact that with the proper equipment people can be safely and successfully evacuated from Afghanistan.

The article concludes:

Kabul airport has been the scene of chaos as Westerners and visa holders desperately trying to get to their flights say they are unable to check in because of the crowd of up to 50,000 desperate locals who are gathering at the gates.

At the main entrance, Taliban fighters periodically fire into the air to clear the crowd in an attempt to disperse the crowd – but video of the fighters unleashing a volley of automatic fire shows the terrifying gauntlet evacuees have to negotiate.

Taliban fighters were seen shooting over the heads of crowds, striking people with rifles, while those on the ground reported beatings and whippings being dished out seemingly at random.

Crowds have also gathered at the entrance to the military wing of the airport, which is guarded by US and British troops who have been firing into the air to disperse the crowds.

Westerners face a race against time to get out of Kabul, with control of the airport resting on the up to 60,000 troops.

Joe Biden has said they will stay until all US citizens are evacuated, but there are suspicions among British troops that they could leave abruptly – leaving the 600 British unable to keep operating to evacuate UK nationals and interpreters.

UK troops have said that firing warning shots is a last resort, the Taliban are causing pandemonium and were filmed today shooting from the hip just yards away from women and children, and whacking people with the butts of their rifles.

Such is the desperation among crowds at the airport that women have resorted to passing babies over barbed wire to soldiers in a vain attempt to get them out of the country.

We have the troops and the resources to successfully evacuate all Americans and those who helped us from Afghanistan. We need to do that.