DefenceTalkTop US military leaders acknowledged Tuesday that the Taliban’s rapid takeover in Afghanistan took them by surprise and expressed concern the Islamic regime has not broken ties with Al-Qaeda. “We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about the US […]

DefenceTalkThe strike by a Hellfire missile in Kabul, August 29, which was launched in an effort to kill ISIS-K planners, instead killed 10 civilians, the commander of U.S. Central Command, Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr. said. During a briefing today at the Pentagon, McKenzie outlined the findings of an investigation he directed following […]

DefenceTalkWASHINGTON: “America is back,” goes US President Joe Biden’s catchphrase, but his unapologetic exit from Afghanistan shows America won’t be back to business as usual. Beyond the trauma of the Kabul evacuation, Biden is pitching a much broader retreat: a halt to using vast military resources to impose order and US values around the planet. […]

DefenceTalkThe US military disabled scores of aircraft and armored vehicles as well as a high-tech rocket defense system at the Kabul airport before it left Monday, a US general said. Central Command head General Kenneth McKenzie said 73 aircraft that were already at Hamid Karzai International Airport were “demilitarized,” or rendered useless, by US troops […]

DefenceTalkThe United States on Monday completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of more than 180 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, some barely older than the war. […]

DefenceTalkVice President Kamala Harris accused China on Tuesday of intimidation in disputed Asian waters, seeking to rally regional allies as the United States’ superpower status takes a hit over Afghanistan. Her comments in Singapore came as Washington seeks to reset relations in Asia after the turbulent Donald Trump era and build a bulwark against the […]

DefenceTalkUS Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief William Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul with Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed US officials. The Monday meeting, which if confirmed will have been the highest-level encounter between the Taliban and the Biden administration since the group’s return to […]

DefenceTalkAfghanistan has fallen to the Taliban, and U.S. troops now in the country are working to secure Hamid Karzai International Airport to enable the safe departure of U.S., allied and Afghan partners from the country. News reports show many Taliban in the streets, some toting American weapons. Other videos show Taliban patrolling the streets in […]

DefenceTalkChina is ready to deepen “friendly and cooperative” relations with Afghanistan, a government spokeswoman said Monday, after the Taliban seized control of the country. Beijing has sought to maintain unofficial ties with the Taliban throughout the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, which spurred an advance by the Islamist hardliners across the country that saw them capture […]

DefenceTalkThe Taliban declared the war in Afghanistan over after taking control of the presidential palace in Kabul while Western nations scrambled on Monday to evacuate their citizens amid chaos at the airport even as a tense calm gripped the capital. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday as the militants entered the capital virtually […]