The Times:
Getting all the troops home takes some fancy footwork
US military commanders at Kabul airport are engaged in an elaborate choreography to complete America’s final troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by midnight tomorrow (Michael Evans writes).
The priority had been to keep hundreds of marines, soldiers and special operations troops in place for as long as possible to ensure safe evacuation of the last Americans and Afghans with immigration visas.
At the same time they have had to put enough troops on the planes starting at least 48 hours before the deadline is reached to guarantee that all the 4,000 service personnel who were there at the end of last week are removed on time.
US defence officials have acknowledged that it may be impossible to remove all the
helicopters and other equipment on the remaining flights because of the space they will take up.
The US military has already destroyed a large amount of assault rifles and ammunition supplied to the Afghan national security forces. The CIA has demolished a building outside the airport used for training Afghan intelligence agencies in counterterrorism. It contained sensitive equipment.
However, there is no evidence that the US has yet had to destroy or disable any helicopters, all of which have been vital to the evacuation.
At least a dozen Chinook, Black Hawk, Apache and special operations-adapted Little Bird helicopters are on the list for withdrawal but some may have to be left behind. US defence officials have indicated they may be destroyed in an airstrike before the midnight deadline.
However, those used by the US Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers, can be flown out of Kabul individually because they have air-refuelling capability.
For the troop airlift choreography, the commanders have had to draw up flight manifests based on the requirement to continue checking visas of Afghans and securing the airport. The 5,800 troop total was cut to 4,000, helped by a decision to close some of the airport entry gates and all the roads around the perimeter.
This enabled marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU) and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, both responsible for perimeter security and checkpoints, to start withdrawing.
The 2,000 Marines from the 24th MEU had originally been airlifted from ships in an amphibious-ready group in the Gulf to Kuwait before being flown to Kabul. They will return to their ships via Kuwait although, sadly, without 11 of their comrades, who were killed in the suicide bombing at Kabul airport.
Among the last to leave Kabul will be several hundred US special operations troops who are expected to be on the final flights out in the hours before midnight tomorrow.
They will be accompanied by the last remaining CIA paramilitary officers. Green beret soldiers of the US Army’s 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and CIA members of the intelligence agency’s special activities division were the first to arrive, covertly, in Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks.
The first in, they will now be the last out when the final chapter of America’s campaign in Afghanistan comes to an end tomorrow.