A prominent Afghan military commander criticized US President Joe Biden and other Western officials for blaming the collapse of the Afghan National Army, without citing the reasons behind it.

For the past three and a half months, General Sami Sadat said in the New York Times that he has fought day and night nonstop in the southern Afghan province of Helmand against the escalating Taliban offensive.

After his forces were subjected to repeated attacks, they were able to repel the movement and inflict heavy losses on life.

Then he was called to Kabul to lead the Afghan Special Forces, but the Taliban had already entered the city and it was too late, and he was exhausted, frustrated and angry.

Sadat referred to President Biden's saying last week that "American forces cannot and should not fight and die in a war that Afghan forces do not want to fight for themselves."

"It is true that the Afghan army has lost its will to fight, but this has been due to its growing sense of neglect by our American partners and the contempt and betrayal that has been reflected in Mr. Biden's tone and words over the past few months," he commented.

He added that "the Afghan army cannot be exempted from blame, for its problems of nepotism and bureaucracy, but in the end we stopped fighting because our partners had already stopped."

The Afghan army was betrayed by the politicians, and this was not only an Afghan war, but an international war with the participation of many armies, and it was impossible for the Afghan army to manage it alone.

General Sadat sees political divisions in Kabul and Washington as one of the reasons that stifled the Afghan army and limited its ability to do its job, as the loss of combat logistical support provided by the United States for years has paralyzed its movement, as has the lack of clear guidance from the American and Afghan leadership.

General Sami Sadat, division commander in the Afghan National Army (French)

He said there was a sense of betrayal here and that President Ashraf Ghani's swift flight from the country ended efforts to negotiate an interim agreement for a transitional period with the Taliban that would have enabled the military to take control of Kabul and help manage the evacuations.

Instead, chaos erupted, leading to the desperate scenes seen at Kabul airport.

3 reasons for the collapse of the Afghan army

General Sadat summarized the reason for the collapse of the Afghan army in 3 points.

The first is

that the peace agreement with the Taliban in February 2020 thwarted the plans of the Afghan army because it set an end date for US interests in the region.

Second,

the Afghan army lost the necessary logistical support and maintenance operations by the respective contractors, which was critical to combat operations.

Third, the

rampant corruption of Ghani's government, which has decimated the military's top leadership and has long crippled forces on the ground irreparably, has paralyzed the Afghan army.

Sadat concluded his article that the Afghan army was betrayed by politicians, and that this was not only an Afghan war, but an international war with the participation of many armies.

It was impossible for the Afghan army to manage it alone, so what happened was a military defeat that resulted from a political failure.