US troops abandoned Bagram airport base in the dead of night WITHOUT telling Afghan forces who were due to take it over… and only realised two hours later
US forces in Afghanistan abandoned their main base at Bagram airport overnight Friday - shutting off the lights and slipping away into the night without telling government forces who were supposed to take it over.
General Mir Asadullah Kohistani, who is now in charge of the base which for 20 years served as the headquarters for America's war on the Taliban, said he only discovered the Americans had left two hours after they were gone when they called from Kabul airport.
By the time he arrived with troops to secure the site, looters had broken in and carried away many items that the soldiers had left behind - including laptops, stereo speakers, bicycles and guitars which were being hawked from second-hand shops by Sunday morning.
General Kohistani said troops also left behind small arms and ammunition along with hundreds of military vehicles and thousands of civilian cars and trucks, though many do not have the keys needed to start them. He has also inherited Bagram prison and its roughly 5,000 inmates - mostly believed to be Taliban.
It comes as Joe Biden puts an end to America's 'forever war' with all US troops due to be out of the country by the symbolic date of September 11 - though commanders are on course to withdraw by the end of August.
On Monday, an Afghan soldier plays a guitar that was left behind after the American military departed Bagram Air Base
An Afghan scrap dealer on Saturday sorts items discarded by US forces outside Bagram Air Base
After nearly two decades, the US military has left the Bagram airfield in central Afghanistan and has handed it over to Afghan National Defense and Security Forces
Looters ransacked the base after the last of the US soldiers departed Bagram on July 2
Infantry Squad vehicles left behind by departing US troops are seen in Bagram air base north of Kabul, Afghanistan on Monday
An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier take a selfie on Monday inside the Bagram US air base after all US and NATO troops had left
An Afghan man is seen above on Monday resting in his shop as he sells secondhand items from the Bagram US air base after American troops left over the weekend
'They (Americans) are completely out now and everything is under our control, including watchtowers, air traffic and the hospital,' a senior Afghan government official told Reuters.
Reuters journalists on Monday visited the heavily fortified compound, long a symbol of Western forces deployed to shore up the Afghan government against the Taliban's campaign to regain power after being toppled by a US intervention in 2001.
Dozens of vehicles left behind by the United States stood on the premises while others zipped around with Afghan officials and personnel coming to terms with operating the vast base.
Radars oscillated as soldiers stood on guard, and hundreds of Afghan security personnel moved into barracks that once housed US soldiers.
Where American entertainers had once visited to boost the morale of US troops, an Afghan soldier strummed a guitar, singing a Pashto language epic on the Afghan homeland, while other Afghan soldiers toured the grounds on bicycles.
A forklift carries a vehicle in Bagram after American troops abandoned it early on Friday morning
An empty bed is seen inside a clinic in Bagram Air Base after American troops vacated it
The image above shows safety bunkers inside the Bagram Air Base after all US and NATO forces evacuated it over the weekend
'We (heard) some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram ... and finally by seven o'clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,' Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani, Bagram's new commander said.
Before the Afghan army could take control, the airfield, barely an hour's drive from the Afghan capital Kabul, was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being kicked out, according to Afghan military officials.
'At first we thought maybe they were Taliban,' said Abdul Raouf, a soldier of 10 years.
He said the US called from the Kabul airport and said 'we are here at the airport in Kabul.'
Kohistani insisted the Afghan National Security and Defense Force could hold on to the heavily fortified base despite a string of Taliban wins on the battlefield.
Afghan security forces stand guard after the American military left Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, Afghanistan
A hangar behind barbed wire fencing after the American military left the base north of Kabul
Stretchers outside the clinic in Bagram after the last of the US troops left the area over the weekend
The Bagram Air Base is mostly empty after the last American left the base, winding up its 'forever war' in the night without notifying the new Afghan commander until more than two hours after they slipped away
Afghan security forces keep watch after the American military left Bagram Air Base north of Kabul on Monday
An Afghan security forces member keeps watch in an army vehicle in Bagram Air Base Monday
An Afghan soldier is seen above sitting in an army vehicle inside the base that was evacuated by US forces over the weekend
Afghan army soldiers patrol after the American military left Bagram Air Base over the weekend
Afghan army soldiers stand guard after the American military left Bagram Air Base
An Afghan army soldier stands guard inside the prison after the American military left Bagram Air Base
An Afghan army soldier walks past Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, MRAP, that were left after the American military left Bagram
The image above shows an American mine-resistant ambush protection vehicle (MRAP) that was left at Bagram by departing US forces over the weekend
Blast walls and a few buildings at Bagram Air Base
Vehicles are parked at Bagram Airfield after the American military left the base
The US fortress is 40 miles north of the capital, Kabul. It was the heart of American military might in Afghanistan, a sprawling mini-city behind fences and blast walls
The airfield also includes a prison with about 5,000 prisoners, many of them allegedly Taliban.
The Taliban's latest surge comes as the last US and NATO forces pull out of the country. As of last week, most NATO soldiers already had quietly left.
The last US soldiers are likely to remain until an agreement to protect the Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport, which is expected to be done by Turkey, is completed.
Meanwhile, in northern Afghanistan, district after district has fallen to the Taliban. In just the last two days hundreds of Afghan soldiers fled across the border into Tajikistan rather than fight the insurgents.
'In battle it is sometimes one step forward and some steps back,' said Kohistani.
Kohistani said the Afghan military is changing its strategy to focus on the strategic districts. He insisted they would retake them in the coming days without saying how that would be accomplished.
On display Monday was a massive facility, the size of a small city, that had been exclusively used by the US and NATO.
The once-bustling base has now been abandoned by American troops. Back in 2012, Bagram saw more than 100,000 U.S. troops and NATO service members pass through its sprawling compound. It is pictured looking eerily deserted on Friday
Empty: For two decades, the ever-expanding air base was filled with US troops. This week, the last group of American soldiers there finally departed
The sheer size is extraordinary, with roadways weaving through barracks and past hangar-like buildings.
There are two runways and over 100 parking spots for fighter jets known as revetments because of the blast walls that protect each aircraft.
One of the two runways is 12,000 feet long and was built in 2006.
There's a passenger lounge, a 50-bed hospital and giant hangar size tents filled with supplies such as furniture.
Kohistani said the US left behind 3.5 million items, all itemized by the departing US military.
They include tens of thousands of bottles of water, energy drinks and military ready made meals, known as MRE's.
'When you say 3.5 million items, it is every small items, like every phone, every door knob, every window in every barracks, every door in every barracks,' he said.
The big ticket items left behind include thousands of civilian vehicles, many of them without keys to start them, and hundreds of armored vehicles.
Kohistani said the US also left behind small weapons and the ammunition for them, but the departing troops took heavy weapons with them.
US troops are seen loading a helicopter onto a C-17 Globesmaster at Bagram on June 16 as they prepare to leave the base
A gate at the Bagram base on June 25, as the last US troops prepared to withdraw
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