U.S. adversaries could exploit former Afghan commandos -U.S. Republican report

Avjennings

14/08/2022 16:14

By Jonathan Landay
    WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Former Afghan security
personnel with sensitive knowledge of U.S. operations left
behind by the American evacuation operation are vulnerable to
recruitment or coercion by Russia, China and Iran, Republican
lawmakers said on Sunday, noting that President Joe Biden's
administration failed to prioritize evacuating them.
    "This is especially true given reports that some former
Afghan military personnel have fled to Iran," minority
Republicans of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee said in
a report on the first anniversary of the Taliban takeover of
Kabul.
    The Biden administration, the report said, failed to
prioritize evacuating U.S.-trained Afghan commandos and other
elite units in the shambolic Aug. 14-30, 2021, U.S. troop
pullout and evacuation operation at Kabul international airport.
    Thirteen U.S. soldiers died and hundreds of U.S. citizens
and tens of thousands of at-risk Afghans were left behind during
the operation.
    The administration calls the operation an "extraordinary
success" that flew more than 124,000 Americans and Afghans to
safety and wound up an "endless" war in which some 3,500 U.S.
and allied troops, and hundreds of thousands of Afghans died.
    But hundreds of U.S.-trained commandos and other former
security personnel and their families remain in Afghanistan amid
reports the Taliban have been killing and torturing former
Afghan officials, allegations the militants deny.
    Those former personnel "could be recruited or coerced into
working for one of America’s adversaries that maintains a
presence in Afghanistan, including Russia, China, or Iran," the
Republican report said.  
    It called that possibility a "major national security risk"
because those Afghans "know the U.S. military and intelligence
community's tactics, techniques, and procedures."
    Some U.S. officials and experts say Biden has sought to move
on from Afghanistan without properly assessing the war's lessons
and without accountability for the chaotic evacuation.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2ZG21S
    The Republican report wedded new details of the extraction
operation with congressional testimony and military and news
reports to show how the administration overrode U.S. commanders'
advice, failed to adequately plan and disregarded the Taliban's
violations of a 2020 pullout deal.
    In another finding, it said the administration waited until
hours before the Taliban seized Kabul to make key evacuation
decisions.
   They included asking other countries to host transit centers
for thousands of Afghan evacuees who worked for the U.S.
government during the 20-year American intervention and others
at risk of Taliban retribution, said the report.
    "Very little was done to prepare for a Taliban takeover of
the country" or for the evacuation, it said. 

 (Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by David Gregorio)
 ((Jonathan.Landay@thomsonreuters.com; +1 202-354-5885;))