After the collapse of the Afghan authorities, hundreds of Afghan army personnel—together with numerous elite U.S.-trained Afghan commandos—had been pressured to flee to Iran, probably delivering intently guarded secrets and techniques on U.S. particular operators into the fingers of a prime rival within the Center East.
The plight of commandos pressured to flee to Iran is one among many revelations made in a congressional investigation by a prime Republican lawmaker into the ultimate days of the conflict in Afghanistan and chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Kabul because the Taliban took management of the nation virtually one 12 months in the past.
The report by Rep. Michael McCaul, the highest Republican on the Home Overseas Affairs Committee, portrayed a U.S. State Division that was ill-prepared for the speedy collapse of the Afghan authorities in August 2021 and ill-suited to assist handle an enormous airlift evacuation within the ensuing chaos. “At the moment, we’re nonetheless reeling from the harm that was completed final August, together with emboldening and empowering our overseas adversaries,” McCaul stated in an interview.
After the collapse of the Afghan authorities, hundreds of Afghan army personnel—together with numerous elite U.S.-trained Afghan commandos—had been pressured to flee to Iran, probably delivering intently guarded secrets and techniques on U.S. particular operators into the fingers of a prime rival within the Center East.
The plight of commandos pressured to flee to Iran is one among many revelations made in a congressional investigation by a prime Republican lawmaker into the ultimate days of the conflict in Afghanistan and chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Kabul because the Taliban took management of the nation virtually one 12 months in the past.
The report by Rep. Michael McCaul, the highest Republican on the Home Overseas Affairs Committee, portrayed a U.S. State Division that was ill-prepared for the speedy collapse of the Afghan authorities in August 2021 and ill-suited to assist handle an enormous airlift evacuation within the ensuing chaos. “At the moment, we’re nonetheless reeling from the harm that was completed final August, together with emboldening and empowering our overseas adversaries,” McCaul stated in an interview.
Throughout the ultimate days of the withdrawal, america performed an enormous airlift evacuating practically 130,000 folks—the biggest such operation in U.S. historical past. But tens of hundreds of Afghans who aided the two-decadelong American conflict effort had been left in Afghanistan together with Afghan particular forces who fought alongside U.S. forces and a small variety of Americans and everlasting residents. The Biden administration insists it’s working to get out as many individuals as attainable, with no expiration date on U.S. efforts. The visa course of for Afghans searching for to flee Taliban rule, referred to as the particular immigrant visa (SIV) system, is mired in pink tape and bureaucratic backlogs, although administration officers insist they’re working to streamline the method.
An estimated 3,000 Afghan safety forces, together with numerous high-ranking officers and U.S.-trained Afghan particular operators, had been successfully pressured to flee to Iran, in response to McCaul’s new 120-plus-page report, which might be launched on Tuesday. However the report concluded that in ongoing U.S. efforts to soundly evacuate Afghans who assisted the U.S. authorities, “no particular prioritization standing has but been granted to any former Afghan army personnel regardless of the safety dangers highlighted by the Biden administration’s personal State Division.”
4 present and former U.S. officers corroborated the small print of McCaul’s report on Afghan particular operators. They concurred with the report’s conclusions, which warned it’s attainable that the Afghan particular operators who fled to Iran might probably go their institutional information of delicate American army data—together with particular forces ways and delicate intelligence assortment—on to the Iranian authorities, both voluntarily or by way of coercion.
“I believe many of the Afghans that had been within the commandos and different particular items had been actually near the Individuals,” stated Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of protection and CIA paramilitary officer. “However should you had no choice and the one place you could possibly go to flee the Taliban was Iran, they usually’re those which can be going to pay your payments and be capable to deal with your loved ones, they’ll be onerous pressed to not take that chance as a result of they actually don’t have any choices.”
Mir Haider Afzaly, former chairperson of the protection fee in Afghanistan’s parliament, stated Iran has given Afghan commandos who’ve fled to the nation seven-month visa permits to remain in trade for proving to Iranian authorities they used to serve within the Afghan army. Afzaly stated he predicts Iran will renew these permits indefinitely.
The present and former officers who spoke to Overseas Coverage stated they haven’t tracked a concerted effort by Iran to arrange or acquire intelligence from former Afghan particular operators however cautioned that it might be onerous to know if Tehran did primarily based on publicly accessible data.
When requested about Afghan commandos pressured to flee to Iran and if there have been any plans underway in america to carry Afghan commandos to security, a State Division spokesperson wrote: “The Afghan Nationwide Safety Forces didn’t final so long as anybody anticipated. This was a painful second for Afghans and the a whole bunch of hundreds of Individuals who served in Afghanistan to help the Afghan folks.”
The spokesperson added: “One 12 months later, we’re in a stronger strategic place due to the President’s determination” to withdraw from Afghanistan. “For the primary time in practically 20 years, our forces usually are not in hurt’s approach in Afghanistan, and we’re absolutely targeted on the challenges and alternatives that outline the twenty first century.” The Pentagon didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The Taliban have stepped up a marketing campaign of concentrating on and killing former members of the Afghan army in latest months as they battle pockets of resistance towards their rule in elements of the nation’s jap and southern provinces. Former Afghan commandos are notably weak to the Taliban’s hunt-and-kill operations, present and former U.S. officers stated, which is what drove some to flee to Iran.
It seems that most of the former particular operators who made it to Iran have been put to work in heavy labor or as shopkeepers. In a TikTok video posted in Might and shared extensively amongst former Afghan officers, one former Afghan commando stated he had discovered a job at a building website in Iran.
“The Iranians are very completely happy as a result of after the autumn of the Afghan authorities, they’ve gotten a strong and muscled labor pressure, which largely consists of former Afghan commandos and troopers,” the previous commando stated within the video. “Iranians even make enjoyable of us by saying, ‘I want the Afghan authorities collapsed sooner, so we might have these hardworking laborers earlier.’”
The CIA individually evacuated hundreds of Afghans independently, together with counterterrorism operators educated by the U.S. intelligence group, from a safe compound known as Eagle Base within the final days of the U.S. withdrawal from the nation, however former officers acquainted with the matter stated there are a considerably bigger variety of present and former Afghan army commandos who required evacuation.
Iran, which shares a virtually 600-mile-long border with Afghanistan, has a historical past of recruiting and utilizing Afghan proxies in fight. Tehran as soon as backed the Northern Alliance towards the Taliban in the course of the Afghan civil conflict within the Nineties. And Iran’s elite Quds Power educated and recruited the so-called Fatemiyoun Division, an Afghan Shiite militia, to combat towards Sunni teams in Syria starting in 2013 in the course of the Syrian civil conflict. The Fatemiyoun Division at one level had an estimated power of as much as 20,000 fighters, in response to researchers.
The congressional investigation concluded that the Afghan army forces and commandos who fled to Iran had been pressured to take action after successfully being deserted by america, and it stated the Biden administration has but to decide on whether or not to launch a brand new marketing campaign to attempt to evacuate any Afghan commandos left behind.
“Because the Taliban’s advance on Kabul progressed, there was no organized effort to prioritize the evacuation of vital Afghan army personnel who possessed distinctive information of the U.S. army’s ways, methods, and procedures and will thereby pose a safety threat to America in the event that they might be pressured to expose their information to a U.S. adversary,” the report acknowledged.
In accordance with the report, a senior State Division official stated on Feb. 16 that “the problem of evacuating Afghan commandos ‘might be mentioned within the interagency’ and ‘all of it nonetheless stays to be mentioned and decided.” However as of July, the White Home had nonetheless not decided, the report stated.
The Biden administration, in the meantime, continues to insist that U.S. President Joe Biden inherited a damaged Afghanistan coverage from former U.S. President Donald Trump, together with the 2020 Doha settlement with the Taliban that allowed the militant group to achieve army power whereas america ready its withdrawal.
“Once we took workplace, the Taliban was in its strongest army place since 2001 and we had the smallest variety of U.S. troops on the bottom,” the State Division spokesperson stated. “Ending the longest conflict in American historical past was by no means going to be straightforward. Two earlier presidents needed to finish it and weren’t capable of. However President Biden was dedicated to keep away from handing a endlessly conflict to his successor.”
