A managed detonation by American forces on Thursday that was heard all through Kabul destroyed Eagle Base, the ultimate C.I.A. outpost exterior the
A managed detonation by American forces on Thursday that was heard all through Kabul destroyed Eagle Base, the ultimate C.I.A. outpost exterior the Kabul airport, U.S. officers mentioned on Friday.
Blowing up the bottom was supposed to make sure that any tools or info left behind wouldn’t fall into the palms of the Taliban.
Eagle Base, first began early within the battle at a former brick manufacturing facility, had been used all through the battle and grew from a small outpost to a sprawling heart that was used to coach the counterterrorism forces of Afghanistan’s intelligence businesses.
These forces had been among the solely ones to maintain preventing as the federal government collapsed, in response to present and former officers who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate intelligence-related issues.
“They had been an distinctive unit,” mentioned Mick Mulroy, a former C.I.A. officer who served in Afghanistan. “They had been one of many main means the Afghan authorities has used to maintain the Taliban at bay during the last twenty years. They had been the final ones preventing they usually took heavy casualties.”
Native Afghans knew little concerning the base. The compound was extraordinarily safe and designed so it could be all however unimaginable to penetrate. Partitions reaching 10 toes excessive surrounded the location and a thick steel gate slid open and shut shortly to permit automobiles inside.
As soon as the automobiles received inside, they nonetheless needed to clear three outer safety checkpoints the place the car could be searched, and paperwork could be screened earlier than being allowed inside the bottom.
Within the early years of the battle, a junior C.I.A. officer was put in command of the Salt Pit, a detention web site close to Eagle Base. There the officer ordered a prisoner, Gul Rahman, stripped of his clothes and shackled to a wall. He died of hypothermia. A C.I.A. board really helpful disciplinary motion however was overruled.
A former C.I.A. contractor mentioned that leveling the bottom would have been no straightforward activity. Along with burning paperwork and crushing arduous drives, delicate tools wanted to be destroyed so it didn’t fall into the palms of the Taliban. Eagle Base, the previous contractor mentioned, was not like an embassy the place paperwork may very well be shortly burned.
The destruction of the bottom had been deliberate and was not associated to the huge explosion on the airport that killed an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 American service members. However the detonation, hours after the airport assault, alarmed many individuals in Kabul, who feared it was one other terrorist bombing.
The official American mission in Afghanistan to evacuate U.S. residents and Afghan allies is about to finish subsequent Tuesday, Aug. 31. The Taliban have mentioned that the evacuation effort should not be extended, and Biden administration officers say that persevering with previous that date would dramatically enhance the dangers to each Afghans and U.S. troops.
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