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Former NATO general: Afghanistan withdrawal was a 'mistake'

Kieran Burke
August 12, 2021

Egon Ramms, a retired four-star German general, told DW he was "astonished" by Taliban's quick advances in Afghanistan, while questioning the efficacy of government forces.

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Four star General Egon Ramms in Nato headquarters in Heidelberg, 2007
Egon Ramms, pictured here in 2007, served as a four star general in the Bundeswehr and was Commander of the Allied Joint Forces in Afghanistan from 2007 - 2010Image: Diemer Steffen/Sodapix AG/picture alliance

A former senior NATO commander for Afghanistan expressed his astonishment at the speed of the Taliban advance in an interview with DW on Thursday.

Egon Ramms, a retired four-star German general, was Commander of the Allied Joint Force between 2007 and 2010. He was responsible for overseeing the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. 

"The Taliban are moving forward in a very, very quick way where I say that is astonishing for me," Ramms said.

Questions over NATO troop withdrawal decision

Ramms said he was left surprised by US President Joe Biden's decision to complete the US troop withdrawal by the end of August, and said the speed of the departure raised a number of questions about the responsibility of NATO.

Afghanistan troop withdrawal a mistake, says George W. Bush

Calling it a "mistake," Ramms said that the withdrawal was comparable to the troop reductions that were announced when he was retiring in 2010.

"In 2010, we were talking about the redeployment and the calm down of the ISAF mission — that that was coming too soon, too quickly in 2014. The same mistake I would like to say that we have done at that time, we are just going to conclude that this month."

'What is the Afghan army doing right now?'

Afghan security forces have been on the back foot as Taliban forces surge ahead in an aggressive offensive that is seeing key towns and cities fall to the militant group.

Ramms questioned why the Afghan forces had not mounted a stronger defense.

"We have trained the Afghan National Army and the Americans especially have equipped them quite well. So from that point of view, the question I have is, what is the Afghan army doing right now?"

The retired general said there were hundreds of thousands battle-hardened Afghan troops who had trained under the Americans and Germans, and wondered where they were.

"What are those old soldiers, around about 200,000 doing right now with the equipment and with the training they have got from the Americans, from the Germans to other nations in the past periods?”

The Taliban have managed to capture Herat, the third-largest city in Afghanistan. The militant group has also seized Ghazni according to sources, which is a mere 150 kilometers (95 miles) from Kabul.