Kabul: Nearly 20 years after the first American troops arrived at Bagram Air Base, the last US soldiers left on Friday. The compound had become the center of military power in Afghanistan.
Associated Press reported that two US officials – who asked not to be identified – said that the airfield had been handed over to the Afghan National Security and Defense Force in its entirety.
One of the officials said that the top commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, General Austin S Miller, ‘still retains all the capabilities and authorities to protect the forces’.The US military’s withdrawal from the airfield was the clearest sign that the remaining 2,500-3,500 US troops had either left Afghanistan or were shortly about to depart.
Formerly an abandoned runway without electricity, Bagram Airfield, 50 kilometers north of the Afghan capital Kabul, eventually became a small city with gyms, shops, swimming pools, cinemas, and spas for the tens of thousands of servicemen who work there.
In the beginning, Bagram was symbolic of the mission to hunt down the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Eventually, the base came to symbolize the struggle to oust the Taliban.
Former US presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump toured the facility during their tenures, promising victory. The facility included fighter jets, cargo planes, and attack helicopters. It also had a prison where thousands of Afghans and jihadists were held.
Before the US, the Soviet Union had come and gone through Bagram. US troops built Bagram for their Afghan ally during the Cold War in the 1950s. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the airfield became its main base. In 1989, the Soviet Union negotiated its withdrawal. In recent months, the Islamic State has launched several rocket attacks on Bagram, raising fears that the facility will be targeted in the future.
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