Russia tells US to leave Afghanistan

Moscow does not see the need for further presence of the American contingent in Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, who is also the Russian Foreign Ministry’s director of the Second Asian Department in Afghanistan, told Izvestia daily.

“Moscow never hastened the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. But since the US Army [campaign] there has come to nothing, let them leave Afghanistan,” Kabulov said.

“The American campaign in Afghanistan has failed. Afghanistan risks becoming a global incubator of international terrorism. It has, in fact, already partially grown to become it,” Kabulov added.

Russia strongly opposes the American idea to replace the regular US Army in Afghanistan with military contractors.

“The US is in despair, and plans to replace the professional armed forces with mercenaries are stupid. It will not lead to anything good: mercenaries will simply break into a run. They recruit them from around the world, offering cash. How are they going to fight against the Taliban?” the diplomat wondered.

The US Department of Defense has spent more than $76 billion on weapons and equipment for the Afghan security forces since 2002, the US Government Accountability Office said last week.

Washington has paid for 600,000 weapons, including rifles and pistols, for the Afghan Army and police, the GAO report, released on Thursday, said.

The key equipment provided included 163,000 tactical and non-tactical radios; 76,000 vehicles, such as Humvees; 30,000 equipment items for disposing of explosives, such as bomb disposal robots; and 16,000 equipment items for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, such as unmanned surveillance drones, just to name a handful.

The report came as President Donald Trump said he is “very close” to announcing a new strategy on Afghanistan.

“It’s a very big decision for me,” he told reporters in Bedminster on Thursday.

“I took over a mess,” Trump said, “and we’re going to make it a lot less messy,” he added.