US-trained elite Afghan troops forced to flee to Iran after Taliban's takeover: Report

After the Taliban took over the control of Afghanistan in August 2021, a large number of Afghan military personnel - including several elite Afghan commandos trained by the US - were compelled to flee to Iran, potentially giving a major Middle Eastern opponent access to tightly guarded information on US special operators. This was revealed in a Congressional investigation report by a top Republican lawmaker, who compiled it after the United States' chaotic withdrawal from Kabul. 

In his report, Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, painted a picture of a US State Department that was unprepared for the abrupt fall of the Afghan government and unequipped to assist in managing a massive airlift evacuation in the ensuing chaos. "Today, we are still reeling from the damage that was done last August, including emboldening and empowering our foreign adversaries,” McCaul stated, as per the Foreign Policy magazine. According to McCaul's new 120+ page report, nearly 3,000 Afghan security personnel, including a number of senior officials and Afghan special operations trained by the US, were essentially forced to flee to Iran. 

Four US officials verified McCaul's report

McCaul's assessment of Afghan special operators was verified by four current and former US officials. They agreed with the report's findings which claimed that Afghan special operators, who escaped to Iran, could have possibly disclosed their institutional knowledge of classified American military information. 

“I think most of the Afghans that were in the commandos and other special units were really close to the Americans,” Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defence and CIA paramilitary officer, was quoted by Foreign Policy as saying. 

Despite the security dangers mentioned by the Biden administration's State Department, no former Afghan military personnel have yet received a "special priority status" in the ongoing attempts to safely evacuate Afghans who helped the US government, the report claimed.

Tension between US & Iran escalate over JCPOA, Salman Rushdie's stabbing

It should be mentioned here that the report comes at a time when tensions between the US and Iran are on the rise over the stalled 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly called the Iran Nuclear Deal. Earlier in July, Iran stated that the US needs to show "in practice" that it intends the revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement. Notably, tensions between the two countries have been growing after former US President Donald Trump-led administration unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, and also reimposed sanctions on Iran’s oil sector citing Tehran's breach of the terms and obligations under the agreement.  

Meanwhile, the United States has also accused Iran of being involved in the recent attack on renowned novelist Salman Rushdie. The 75-year-old author was stabbed by a man when he was about to start his lecture in New York on August 12.  However, Iran has denied its involvement in the attack, but chosen harsh words to react to it, saying, "no one deserves blame and accusations except Rushdie and his supporters."

Notably, the renowned author has faced death threats for over three decades over his novel, The Satanic Verses, which angered Muslims due to its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. Slamming his novel’s content as blasphemous, Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had issued a fatwa of Islamic edict that demanded Rushdie’s death. 

(Image: AP)