On Friday, Shahabuddin Delawar, a Taliban official disclosed in Moscow that the Taliban controls around 85 percent of Afghanistan’s territory. At the press conference, Shahabuddin Delawar stated, “85 percent of Afghanistan territory” is under the group’s control, involving around 250 of the country’s 398 districts. He further voiced as cited by ‘TOI’ that all administrative bodies and hospitals continue their work in this territory. “We ensure their functionality.”, he added.
The Pentagon’s Central Command on Tuesday declared that the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan is almost 90 percent complete. ‘Wion’ quoted that the CentCom informed that it had officially handed over seven former US bases to the Afghan security forces and have evacuated nearly 1,000 C-17 air freighter loads of equipment from the country, prior to the September deadline to conclude the pullout.
As per reports, on Friday US forces have handed over the Bagram airbase located north of Kabul. The Bagram airbase is considered the main center of US military operations in the country for over the past two decades of conflicts.
The announcement made on Tuesday almost clarified that the process of withdrawing US military and civilian personnel as directed by President Joe Biden in April is almost completed. When Biden’s order came to notice there were around 2500 US troops officially and 16,000 private contractors. Reportedly, there were also 1000 US special forces operating in Afghanistan at that time as well, not included in the official tally.
