Report: Warning of Afghan Air Force Collapse Issued Months Before U.S. Pullout

A Taliban fighter sits in the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force aircraft at the airport in Ka
Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images
Nathaniel Charles

A military watchdog warned the U.S. Department of Defense that pulling out of Afghanistan would decimate the local domestic air force – a full seven months before Joe Biden ordered the exit.

In January 2021, John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), warned that Afghanistan’s Air force would no longer function if the U.S. pulled out of the nation, AP reports.

Sopko’s report has just been declassified – five months after the Taliban take over – declaring the U.S. had not trained the Afghani Air force on how to maintain their aircraft leaving them dependent on American military contractors. The report stated this was a factor in allowing the Taliban to seize control of the nation in just 11 days.

The inspector general’s office informed AP on Monday the 17th of January 2022 that it is unusual for reports to remain classified by the Pentagon for more than two months, and they are unaware as to why the Department of Defense had not released this report earlier.

Taliban fighters walk past Afghan Air Force helicopters at a hangar at the airport in Kabul on September 14, 2021. (KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images)

Sopko reported that 86 percent of Afghanistan’s Air force, including support staff, did not receive proper training for U.S. and NATO forces, despite the U.S. handing out $8.5 billion “to support and develop” the Afghan air force from 2010-2019.

This is out of a total of the nearly $1 trillion Washington spent on its military engagement in Afghanistan and the over $145 billion dished out by the U.S. taxpayer on the reconstruction in Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban takeover, President Joe Biden has granted Taliban-controlled Afghanistan a total of more than $780 million in humanitarian.

The U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 was a disaster with the majority of U.S. trained military forces in Afghanistan fleeing or surrendering to the Taliban, with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying the decision to pull out had a “demoralising effect on Afghan soldiers”.

Biden decided to continue with the U.S. military withdrawal in spite of increased instability in the region, and despite repeatedly delaying it and breaking the initial deal President Donald Trump had made with the Taliban.

Ben Wallace, the British Defence Secretary, branded Biden’s move a “mistake” and said the “international community will probably pay the consequences” in the future.

Britain had the second largest number of foreign troops in the region at the time.

Since the Taliban assumed control, Afghanistan has seen a return to the oppressive Islamic Sharia Law, women have been forced into Burkhas – some, including girls, have been imprisoned as sex slaves – and some musicians have seen their instruments publicly burned by the Taliban in a public shaming exercise.

Speaking to the BBC Haji Badruddin a Taliban judge said, “In our Sharia it’s clear, for those who have sex and are unmarried, whether it’s a girl or a boy, the punishment is 100 lashes in public”.

“But for anyone who’s married, they have to be stoned to death … For those who steal: if it’s proved, then his hand should be cut off,” he continued.

There are no official numbers for how many people have been publicly executed since the U.S. and its allies withdrew.

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