Bagram Air Base as last US soldiers set to leave

(29 Jun 2021) For nearly 20 years, it was the heart of US military power in Afghanistan, a sprawling mini city behind fences and blast walls, just an hour's drive north of Kabul.
It was initially a symbol of the US drive to avenge the 9/11 attacks, then of its struggle for a way through the civil war that ensued.
US Central Command said last week that it has already packed up more than 50% of Bagram, and the rest is going fast.
US officials have said the entire pullout of US troops will most likely be finished by July 4.
The Afghan military will then take over Bagram Airfield, to be used in its continuing fight against the Taliban and in what many in the country fear will be a new eruption of chaos.
The departure is a moment rife with its own symbolism.
Not least, it's the second time that an invader of Afghanistan has come and gone through Bagram.
In just a matter of days, the last US soldier will depart from Bagram Airfield.
They are leaving what most with a connection to the base, whether American or Afghan, consider a mixed legacy.
Retired Afghan General Saifullah Safi, who worked alongside US forces at Bagram, said Bagram's future is uncertain.
"Bagram can turn to a very good and strong base for the Afghan Airforce, and they will be able to control the whole country. But if there no peace, and fighting continues, I believe that a second wave of resistance will start from Bagram against the groups, which don't want peace in Afghanistan," said General Safi.
When the US and NATO inherited Bagram in 2001, they found it in ruins, a collection of crumbling buildings, gouged by rockets and shells, most of its perimeter fence wrecked.
It had been abandoned after being battered in the battles between the Taliban and rival mujahideen warlords fleeing to their northern enclaves.
After dislodging the Taliban from Kabul, the US-led coalition began working with their warlord allies to rebuild Bagram, first with temporary structures, then turning more permanent.
Its growth was explosive, eventually swallowing up roughly 30 square miles.
The Soviet Union built the airfield in the 1950s.
When it invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to back a communist government, it turned it into its main base from which it would defend its occupation of the country.
For 10 years, the Soviets fought the US-backed mujahedeen, dubbed freedom fighters by President Ronald Reagan, who saw them as a frontline force in one of the last Cold War battles.
The Soviet Union negotiated its withdrawal in 1989.
Three years later, the pro-Moscow government collapsed, and the mujahedeen took power, only to turn their weapons on each other and kill thousands of civilians.
That turmoil helped bring the Taliban to power, overrunning Kabul in 1996.

General Safi said the Soviets left all their equipment behind.
"When the Soviets withdrew from country, they left behind all their extra equipment, especially weaponries for Airforce, heavy weapons, Scart missiles, small arms, ammunitions and handed over everything to Dr. Najibullah's (president of communist regime) army," said General Safi.
The Americans have given the Afghan military some weaponry and other materials.
Anything else that they are not taking, they are destroying and selling it to scrap dealers around Bagram.
US officials say they must ensure nothing usable can ever fall into Taliban hands.
Last week, the US Central Command said it had junked 14,790 pieces of equipment and sent 763 C-17 aircraft loaded with material out of Afghanistan.
The US withdrawal effects nearly every household, said Darwaish Raufi, district governor.
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