The United States’ Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has found that the single most important factor behind the Afghan National Defense and Security Force’s (ANDSF) collapse in August last year was the US’ decision to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan.

This decision was taken after the US signed an agreement in February 2020, under former president Donald Trumps administration, with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) - an agreement adhered to by President Joe Biden.

In their latest report, SIGAR stated that due to the ANDSF’s dependency on US military forces, these events destroyed ANDSF morale.

The ANDSF had long relied on the US military’s presence to protect against large-scale ANDSF losses, and Afghan troops saw the United States as a means of holding their government accountable for paying their salaries.

The US-IEA agreement made it clear that this was no longer the case, resulting in a sense of abandonment within the ANDSF and the Afghan population, SIGAR reported.

The agreement set in motion a series of events crucial to understanding the ANDSF’s collapse, SIGAR stated.

Among those included a drop in the number of US airstrikes; the fact that ANDSF remained reliant on the US military, especially as “the United States designed the ANDSF as a mirror image of US forces.

“This created long-term ANDSF dependencies. The United States created a combined arms military structure that required a high degree of professional military sophistication and leadership,” SIGAR stated adding that the ANDSF had stockpiles of US-provided weapons and supplies, but did not have the logistics capabilities to move these items quickly enough to meet operational demands and had to rely on a thinly-stretched Afghan Air Force to do so.

“As a result, ANDSF units complained that they did not have enough ammunition, food, water, or other military equipment to sustain military engagements against the Taliban (IEA).

“Additionally, the Afghan government failed to develop a national security strategy and plan for nationwide security following the withdrawal of US forces,” SIGAR stated adding that instead, former president Ashraf Ghani frequently changed ANDSF leaders and appointed loyalists, while marginalizing well-trained ANDSF officers aligned with the United States.

The constant turnover weakened military chains of command, trust, and morale in the ANDSF. “Young, welltrained, educated, and professional ANDSF officers who grew up under US tutelage were marginalized and their ties to the U.S. became a liability.”

SIGAR also stated that the United States created more long-term dependencies by providing the ANDSF with advanced military equipment that they could not sustain and that required a US military or contractor presence and that the US lacked any real way to measure the ANDSF’s development.

“The metrics DOD used were inconsistent and unable to measure the development of ANDSF capabilities and capacities over time,” SIGAR stated.

SIGAR also stated that while ANDSF members have either left Afghanistan, or are in hiding, there are those who “have joined extremist groups in Afghanistan.”