Over 5,000 Afghan commandos may turn to Islamic State if not evacuated
The 30th of August saw the end of America’s much-criticised and chaotic evacuation operation in Afghanistan, following the Taliban’s takeover of the capital Kabul.
Former US Navy Special Warfare Intelligence Chief Glenn Pangelinan has warned that thousands of Afghan commandos may turn to Islamic State if Washington fails to evacuate them from Afghanistan.
“The estimate is 5,600. They’re completely vetted. These are individuals that were given tradecraft by the intelligence community. These are folks who have been given special tactics of weapons training”, Pangelinan, nicknamed Pango, told Fox News.
A native of Guam, Pango recently returned from a fact-finding mission on the island to find out how the US territory could become a place of refuge for thousands of Afghan allies and their families who have yet to be evacuated from the country.
During the Fox News interview, the ex-Navy intelligence chief made it clear that if the Afghan commandos realise they won’t be evacuated, they may sell their skills to Daesh or the Taliban.
“If people are selling their children at this point in time, which it has been reported they have been in Afghanistan, what would a person do to save their children or their family if they’re threatened by ISIS [Daesh], KP [regional Daesh affiliate] or the Taliban? What would you do? We can only consider the worst”, Pango said.
He spoke after Republican Mike Waltz urged Congress to pass legislation to make it easier for the Biden administration to evacuate the aforementioned vetted allies.
“These commandos are trained, highly trained, on how we do signals intelligence, how we do human intelligence, how we operate. We know that the Taliban are hunting them down. They are seeking to force them through coercion to hand over that information so that they can use it and they can understand how we operate”, Waltz said an in interview with Fox News.
He added that he does not rule out the US military sending its “special operators” back to Afghanistan “to deal with the rising ISIS and al-Qaeda threat”.
“Now they all know our tactics, techniques, and procedures that puts future American soldiers on the line. So it’s even more critical then, that we get these commandos out”, Waltz stressed.
This was preceded by a New York Times probe, which revealed that the US staged a covert operation in Afghanistan in August to evacuate hundreds of American nationals and at least 1,000 allied Afghan commandos from Afghanistan via a secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) compound outside Kabul.
The inquiry argued that Eagle Base — which until 2004 was home to the Salt Pit prison — was used between 15 and 27 August to assist with evacuation efforts after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on 15 August.
On 30 August, the Pentagon confirmed that America’s nearly 20-year presence in Afghanistan came to a close when the final Boeing C-17 aircraft departed from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. Former US President Donald Trump slammed the troop exit as the greatest embarrassment in the nation’s history.
The US troop pullout took place amid the Taliban’s rapid offensive in Afghanistan, which resulted in the militant group taking over the capital Kabul without a fight and then sezing power in the country on 15 August.
Source: Sputnik News
