SNEAKING OUT

Furious Afghan Official: U.S. Troops Abandoned Base in Middle of Night With No Warning

U.S. forces moved out of the base early Friday, but its new commander said the operation happened secretly.

Afghanistan military officials are not happy about how the U.S. left Bagram Airfield—the epicenter of its operations in the country for nearly two decades. U.S. forces moved out of the base early Friday, but its new commander said the U.S. gave Afghan officials absolutely no warning that they were abandoning the facility. “We [heard] some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram... and finally by 7 o’clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani said, according to the Associated Press. The general accused the U.S. of shutting off electricity at the base, leaving behind around 5,000 Taliban prisoners, and allowing looters to ransack the base before Afghan forces were able to regain control. One angry Afghan soldier commented to the Associated Press: “In one night, they lost all the goodwill of 20 years by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area.”