Afghanistan

… According to the US Department of Defense, the total military expenditure in Afghanistan (from October 2001 until September 2019) had reached $778bn.

In addition, the US state department – along with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government agencies – spent $44bn on reconstruction projects.

That brings the total cost – based on official data – to $822bn between 2001 and 2019, but it doesn’t include any spending in Pakistan, which the US uses as a base for Afghan-related operations.

Afghan troops have been filmed laying down their arms to the Taliban as the terror group shows off the American-made weapons it has seized after US and Nato troops beat a hasty retreat.

The Afghan army is collapsing across the country and the Taliban appear to be winning the propaganda war with videos to prove that they will welcome surrendering soldiers – as long as they hand over their state-of-the-art weapons and Humvee armoured cars.

The US left Bagram Airfield last week – its fortress in the country for nearly 20 years – by slipping away in the night without telling the base’s new Afghan commander who discovered they had gone the next morning.

The US war in Afghanistan was not supposed to be another Vietnam. “I don’t do quagmires,” said Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the original US invasion, who died last week. In the end the former US defence secretary did two quagmires, airily assuming Afghanistan was “won” in the spring of 2003 when he sent American troops to fight in Iraq.

US combat troops were in Vietnam for eight years, but they have been in Afghanistan for 20. It has been America’s longest war by far.

Joe Biden has insisted the withdrawal is not quite complete, but the remaining few hundred US troops in Afghanistan are there on guard duty. The abandonment of Bagram airbase on Friday marked the true end to the US military presence in the country.

More than 1,000 Afghan soldiers have fled to neighbouring Tajikistan after clashing with Taliban militants, officials have said.

The troops retreated over the border to “save their own lives”, according to a statement by Tajikistan’s border guard.

Violence has risen in Afghanistan and the Taliban have been making significant gains, particularly in the north of the country, in recent weeks.

The surge coincides with the end of Nato’s 20-year military mission.

The Taliban has “prevailed” in its battle with the West in Afghanistan, the former head of the British Army has said, as it emerged all UK and US troops will be withdrawn on Sunday.

Writing in The Telegraph, General Lord Dannatt said the mission had been intended to give the Afghan people the choice of a more “moderate and peaceful” life.

“Ultimately, Taliban force of arms has prevailed, and the people of that country have been denied the chance to choose a better way of life,” Lord Dannatt said. “Tragically, a descent into the chaos of civil war seems highly likely.”

The last US and Nato forces have left Afghanistan’s Bagram airbase, the centre of the war against militants for some 20 years.

The pull-out could signal that the complete withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan is imminent.

President Joe Biden has said US forces will be gone by 11 September.

But the withdrawal from the sprawling base, north of Kabul, comes as the main jihadist group, the Taliban, advances in many parts of Afghanistan.

The United States armed forces have spent 20 years in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban and other terrorists, building roads and schools, training the Afghan military, and trying to create a stable government in a country that has never been a country.

Since the beginning of NATO’s official troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on May 1, the Islamist militant group has taken over at least 27 districts from Afghan forces, and the number is rapidly increasing.

The Taliban are intensifying attacks across Afghanistan to gain more territory ahead of NATO’s troop withdrawal in September. The militant group now controls vast swaths of land.

Heavy fighting in many districts in recent weeks has inflicted heavy losses on both Taliban and government forces.

On Wednesday, more than 20 Afghan commandos were killed in the northern Faryab province as they tried to regain control of Dawlat Abad district, which Taliban militants had seized 10 days ago.