All US and NATO troops have left the biggest air base in Afghanistan, officials said yesterday, signaling that the complete withdrawal of foreign forces from the country was imminent after two decades of war.
Bagram Air Base served as the linchpin for US-led operations in the rugged country, where the long war against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies started following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“The American and coalition forces have completely withdrawn from the base and henceforth the Afghan army forces will protect it and use it to combat terrorism,” Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesman Fawad Aman wrote on Twitter.
Photo: Reuters
A US defense official confirmed their departure, while the Taliban said it welcomed and supported the latest phase of the troop pullout.
“Their full withdrawal will pave the way for Afghans to decide about their future between themselves,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
The US military and NATO are in the final stages of winding up involvement in Afghanistan, bringing home an unspecified number of remaining troops by a deadline of Sept. 11.
The Taliban have launched relentless offensives across Afghanistan in the past two months, gobbling up dozens of districts, as Afghan security forces have largely consolidated their power in the country’s major urban areas.
The ability of Afghan forces to maintain control of Bagram airfield would likely prove pivotal to maintaining security in Kabul and keeping pressure on the Taliban.
The exit of foreign forces from the base “symbolizes that Afghanistan is alone, abandoned and left to defend itself against the Taliban’s onslaught,” Australia-based Afghanistan expert Nishank Motwani said.
“Having reached home, Americans and allied forces will now watch what they fought so hard to build over 20 years burn down from afar, and knowing that the Afghan men and women they fought with risk losing everything,” Motwani said.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS