Members of the Taliban on Wednesday commemorated the third anniversary of the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan by parading through a former U.S. air base with American weapons and vehicles that had been abandoned.
Bagram Airfield was once the center of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaeda militants responsible for 9/11.
Uniformed soldiers marched with light and heavy machine guns, and a motorcycle formation carried the Taliban flag. Pickup trucks crammed with men of all ages drove through Kabul’s streets in celebration of the takeover.
Members of the Taliban Cabinet lauded achievements such as strengthening Islamic law and establishing a military system that allegedly provided “peace and security.”
“This is the Taliban rubbing their victory over us in our face,” U.S. Army Veteran Bill Roggio told Fox News Digital.
Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of its Long War Journal, called the parade evidence of U.S. failure in Afghanistan.
“The Biden administration’s effort to get out of Afghanistan quickly has led to the Taliban having an American-supplied arsenal,” Roggio said.
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Biden’s decision to pull troops from Afghanistan faced widespread global backlash after Taliban insurgents retook the country in a matter of days, on Aug. 15, 2021, 20 years after their ouster by U.S.-led forces. Just a month earlier, Biden told Americans that the likelihood of a Taliban takeover was “highly unlikely.”
The military evacuation, which required thousands of additional U.S. troops on the ground and significant cooperation from the Taliban to complete, ended a day ahead of a deadline on Aug. 30, 2021, leaving behind hundreds of U.S. citizens and thousands of Afghan allies, despite President Biden’s promise to “get them all out.”
On Aug. 26, 2021, during the U.S. military’s mass evacuation at the Kabul airport, suicide bombers killed 183 people, including 13 U.S. service members. The U.S. retaliated by launching two drone strikes against suspected ISIS-K terrorists, one of which ended up killing 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children.
Taliban speeches were aimed at an international audience, urging the West to interact and cooperate with the country’s rulers. Currently, no country recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
“The Islamic Emirate eliminated internal differences and expanded the scope of unity and cooperation in the country,” Deputy Prime Minister Maulvi Abdul Kabir said Wednesday, using the Taliban’s term to describe their government. “No one will be allowed to interfere in internal affairs, and Afghan soil will not be used against any country.”
Roggio dismissed that last assertion as preposterous, noting that the Taliban has consistently lied about not allowing its soil to be used for terrorist activities against other countries.
“They lied about it pre-9/11. They lied about it while the U.S. was in Afghanistan. They sheltered Al-Qaeda and other groups which they support to this day,” Roggio said.
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“What I do believe them on is their desire to maintain control in Afghanistan, to enforce their will, to impose Sharia on its people,” he said. “You can’t doubt them on that one.”
Roggio said the Taliban’s parading on Wednesday was primarily for optics but still demonstrated the terrorist group’s capabilities.
“I don’t think the Taliban is a threat to project power outside its border. But certainly the equipment is useful to project power within Afghanistan to remain in power,” he said.
Despite the Taliban’s grandiose showing of their capabilities on Wednesday, there was no mention of a plan to improve the lives of the Afghan people. Decades of conflict and instability have left millions of Afghans on the brink of hunger and starvation. Unemployment is high and women are banned from attending school beyond sixth grade.
The Bagram parade was the Taliban’s grandest and most defiant since regaining control of the country in August 2021.
The audience of some 10,000 men included senior Taliban officials such as Acting Defense Minister Mullah Yaqoob and Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani. Supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada was not at the parade.
