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The complicated was as soon as one of the crucial safe websites in Afghanistan.
Deh Sabz District:
After America’s longest conflict, Taliban commander Mullah Hasnain contemplates all that’s left of what was a part of the final CIA base — demolished buildings, destroyed automobiles and piles of ammunition.
“We allow them to go peacefully, and look what they’ve left behind,” Hasnain mentioned, a pacesetter of the Taliban’s elite Badri 313 unit.
Hasnain, a thick-bearded man wearing conventional brown robes with a waistcoat and black turban, surveyed the charred ruins of the sprawling complicated on the sting of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul.
“Earlier than going, they destroyed every little thing,” he informed journalists being proven the positioning, flanked by Taliban guards cradling American M-16 rifles and outfitted with the newest army equipment.
The complicated was as soon as one of the crucial safe websites in Afghanistan, sited on a dusty plain close to the previous US Eagle Base camp and near Kabul airport.
After a two-week blitz of Afghanistan, the Taliban capped their extraordinary victory by sweeping into Kabul on August 15.
It could take two weeks extra earlier than the ultimate US forces flew out, ending their 20-year conflict within the nation.
‘A lot of explosions’
Because the CIA destroyed their base, from the place they skilled Afghanistan’s intelligence businesses, the Taliban watched from close by, the commander mentioned.
“We have been there for 9 or 10 days,” 35-year-old Hasnain mentioned, talking in clear English. “There have been plenty of explosions.”
“We did not cease them, even the final convoy that glided by street to the airport. We did not assault them, as a result of we adopted orders from our high officers.”
Hasnain pointed at one crater he mentioned had been “an ammunition warehouse”. Solely a heap of rubble and twisted steel stay.
The US detonated the munition dump on August 27, with the large blast echoing throughout Kabul and sparking terror.
A day earlier, Islamic State-Khorasan, Afghanistan’s department of the jihadist franchise and rivals of the Taliban, had attacked crowds on the airport making an attempt to flee.
They killed greater than 100 Afghan civilians and 13 US troops.
Hasnain pointed to a different space, the place dozens of crates full of a whole lot of rockets have been piled. “Please do not transfer the grenades,” he informed journalists.
Piles of unused ammunition lay scattered round. “We are able to nonetheless shoot with them,” he mentioned.
One constructing was left intact, a big video games room with billiards, desk soccer, darts and comfortable velvet armchairs. Its signal nonetheless dangled exterior — “The Snooker Membership”.
He regarded out over a car parking zone, full of the incinerated wrecks of scores of automobiles.
“We’d like every little thing for the nation, together with weapons — we do not have sufficient to make sure safety,” he mentioned.
“Now we have now to purchase them from different nations,” he added, declining to specify which of them.
Deliberate destruction
The US mentioned it left as little army gear as potential behind for the Taliban, who carried out years of bloody assaults in opposition to international forces, Afghan troops and the civilian inhabitants.
On the close by airport, US troops disabled or destroyed scores of plane and armoured automobiles, in addition to a high-tech defence system used to cease rocket assaults.
Hasnain was offended on the deliberate destruction, seeing the burned wreckage as symbolic of America’s two-decade keep.
“The US got here to Afghanistan saying that they might rebuild the nation,” he mentioned. “That is their actual face, they did not depart something.”
The Taliban however seized a serious arsenal of weapons elsewhere, in addition to from the previously US-backed authorities military, together with fleets of armoured automobiles.
Ankle-deep within the ash of the burned base, Hasnain supplied a message of conciliation, echoing his Taliban superiors.
“We didn’t make conflict to kill Individuals,” he mentioned. “We did it to free the nation and restore sharia legislation.”
However many in Afghanistan keep in mind the cruel 1996-2001 regime when the Taliban have been beforehand in energy all too nicely.
With the hardline Islamists again in cost, they’re holding their judgement to see if their pledge of a extra average rule will turn into a actuality.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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