Inside the fragile partnership between US troops and Taliban fighters in Kabul
"[W]e would be able to kill more of them than they could ever hope to kill of us."
By Haley Britzky | Published Feb 9, 2022 1:43 PM
News
Analysis
One of the first things Army Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue did when he arrived at Hamid Karzai International Airport last August, was tell the Taliban to get the hell out.
After landing in Kabul on Aug. 16, Donahue — commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division — went to assess the perimeter of the airport that would serve as the sole hub of the U.S. evacuation out of Afghanistan. According to a new investigation, Donahue found Taliban fighters “driving Toyota ZPUs back and forth” near the perimeter; he found “about 9 Taliban pulling guard” in a command post; some Taliban fighters were “sweeping the floor,” two Taliban snipers were on the roof, and one was even watching the arrival of U.S. troops “on closed circuit television.”
It was “all very unacceptable to me,” Donahue told investigators during an interview in October, part of a comprehensive investigation into the Aug. 26, 2021 suicide bombing at Abbey Gate, an entryway into the airport, that killed 13 U.S. service members. So that night, he and Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, who was the top commander on the ground at the time, met with the Taliban to make it clear what they could expect.
“We told them which areas we would be in charge of and which areas they would need to control,” Donahue said, according to the investigation. “We told them that we would control the gates and they would push people out. We expressed that they will comply, because if they fight us on this we would be able to kill more of them than they could ever hope to kill of us.
“After that their tone changed,” he said.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/afghanistan-evacuation-us-military-taliban/
