The Taliban are creating a “grand army” for Afghanistan which will include officers and troops who served the old regime, the official charge with supervise the military’s transformation said on Monday.
Latifallah Hakimi, head of the Taliban Rank Clearance Commission, also said one news conference they had repaired half the 81 helicopters and planes allegedly rendered inoperable by US-led forces during last year’s chaotic withdrawal. He said the Taliban forces took control of more over 300,000 light weapons, 26,000 heavy weapons and approximately 61,000 military vehicles during their lightning takeover of the country.
The Afghan armed forces have disintegrated last summer in the face of an upcoming Taliban assault of August 31 led by the United States force withdrawal – often abandoning their bases and leaving behind all their weapons and vehicles.
The Taliban promised a general amnesty for all linked to the old regime, but almost all senior government and military officials were part of more over 120,000 people who evacuated by air in the final days.
Numerous of the base was still melting though back in civilian life and keeping a low profile for fear of reprisals.
The United Nations said in January more over 100 people linked to the former armed forces have been killed since August. Hakimi, however, insisted that the Taliban amnesty had worked well.
“If it hadn’t been published, we would have seen a very bad situation,” he said. “Suicide bombers who chased a person to target them, are now the same suicide bombers protecting them,” he said. added.
There is little evidence that the Taliban absorbed former troops in their ranks, but over on the weekend they named two senior former Afghan National Army officers in the highest positions in the defense ministry. Both are specialist surgeons attached to the main military hospital.
“Our work on Training of an army is leaving on”, Hakimi said. “Professionals, including pilots and engineers, the military, the personnel logistics and administration (from the old regime) are in their seats in the security sector,” he said. added.
Hakimi said they would form “a grand the army…according to the needs of the country and the national interests”, although he did not specify a size. He said the army would not be one that the country could afford.
Afghanistan, however, is bankrupt, with the country’s 7 billion dollars in overseas assets seized by the United States
washington said half will be reserved for a fund to compensate victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and half gradually published as part of of a carefully controlled humanitarian aid fund.
Hakimi told the news conference, the Taliban had purged nearly 4,500 “people people” of its ranks – for the most part new recruits who joined in the aftermath of their takeover and were blamed for a flood of crime.
