The US troops made their final exit from Afghanistan late on Monday night in a hasty retreat after 20 years of war that turned out to be America’s longest. Before leaving, the US military disabled a number of their choppers and armoured vehicles at the Kabul airport hangar.
Central Command head General Kenneth McKenzie said 73 aircraft that were already at Hamid Karzai International Airport were “demilitarized,” or rendered useless, by US troops before they wrapped up the two-week evacuation of the Taliban-controlled country. “Those aircraft will never fly again… They’ll never be able to be operated by anyone,” he said. “Most of them are non-mission capable to begin with. But certainly they’ll never be able to be flown again.” He said the Pentagon, which built up a force of nearly 6,000 troops to occupy and operate Kabul’s airport when the airlift began on August 14, left behind around 70 MRAP armored tactical vehicles – which can cost up to $1 million apiece – that it disabled before leaving, and 27 Humvees. The counter rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) systems, which were used to fend off a rocket attack on the airport on Monday, were kept online until the last minute and then demilitarized. Throughout the day, as the final C-17 transport planes prepared to take off, McKenzie said the US kept “overwhelming US airpower overhead” to deal with potential Islamic State threats.““
