New Delhi: People who have fled Afghanistan after the Taliban offensive include Afghan commandos trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who are particularly being hunted by the Taliban. It has now emerged that most of the about 20,000-strong force have successfully made it to the US.
A high-level source, very closely involved with intelligence and security operations of the country in the previous governments, told ETV Bharat: “About 90 percent of the Afghan special forces commandos who were raised, trained and equipped by the CIA have been successfully evacuated via Qatar. Most of them have made it successfully to the US.”
The source was communicating with ETV Bharat from an undisclosed location in Kabul and did not want to be named for fear of retribution by the Taliban who have already set up a 33-member interim government in Kabul that has 30 Pashtuns, two Tajiks, and one Uzbek but no Shias, Hazaras, Baluch, Turkmen, women or non-Muslims.
The source said: “The ready availability of thousands of battle-hardened Afghan fighters familiar with the terrain of the war-ravaged country at the beck and call of the US and who can be used for any military operation that the US wants to take up in Afghanistan is a huge tactical advantage for the US.”
Besides being an ever-ready ‘easily deployable’ army of skilled fighters, they can also be a huge force multiplier to the resistance being organised by the likes being led by the Panjshir-headquartered National Resistance Force (NRF) whenever the need is felt to deploy them.
It is an open secret that this special group of fighters spearheaded the Ashraf Ghani-led government’s Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) operations by leading the assaults while the regular ANSF troops provided backup support.
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Paid comparatively high salaries by the CIA, this force was organised under the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the intelligence and security nerve centre of Afghanistan’s security establishment during the time of the pre-Taliban governments.
The NDS had four main units organised on the basis of area of operation. NDS-01 operated in central Afghanistan, NDS-02 in the east, NDS-03 (also called the Kandahar Strike Force) in the south while NDS-04 was mandated to operate in the north.
In many cases, these NDS-controlled commandos formed part of specific units. For instance, in Khost province, they were organised under the Khost Protection Force (KPF) which operated from the CIA base Camp Chapman, located at the outskirts of Khost city.
Asked whether the KPF put up a fight against the Taliban during the latter’s recent offensive, the source said: “The KPF fought till their last bullet. And then they opened negotiations with the local Taliban. They were all given a safe escape route to the Kabul airport. From there, they were all evacuated to Qatar and then to the US.”
Not surprisingly, known for covert ‘kill’ missions and operating beyond the bounds of law, these commandos gained infamy in the past few years with a string of accusations of illegal killings, rights abuse, and use of brutal violence against them.
The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said about these NDS special forces operations that they “appear to be coordinated with international military actors, that is, outside the normal Governmental chain of command.”
Meanwhile, the media has reported that Afghan Air Force pilots who had fled to Uzbekistan after the Taliban advance to Kabul are expected to be shifted to the US base in Doha in Qatar soon and from where their onward journey is to be planned by the end of this week. About 46 Afghan Air Force aircraft had flown into Uzbekistan with members of the Air Force pilots, military personnel, and their families.
Not just these fighters, in the last couple of weeks, with the onset of the Taliban advance across the country, Afghanistan has seen a huge exodus of educated and skilled Afghans including doctors, engineers, teachers, journalists etc amounting to a “brain drain” situation. Even minority communities have moved out in a hurry.
Said Chhabeol Singh, an Afghan Sikh who moved to India sometime back: “Before all these happened, there were about 2 lakh Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan. Now only a few hundred remain in shelters offered in Gurudwaras.”
Afghan media reported that with the recent departure of Zablov Simintov from Kabul, the last Afghan-Jew had left the country. Some decades ago, Afghan Jews numbered about 40,000 in the country.
