NATO’s vow to ‘fight terrorism’ while abandoning weapons to the Taliban is straight out of ‘Police Academy’ comedy, Moscow quips

The West’s insistence that it will not allow Afghanistan to become a hotbed for terrorism is clearly at odds with its chaotic withdrawal from the country as Taliban fighters take charge, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has declared.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, said that NATO’s words were absurdly different from the actions of members of the US-led military bloc. She cited the faction’s General Secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, who used a press conference last week to say that “we will not allow terrorists to threaten us again from Afghanistan.”

This, Zakharova argued, was dramatically at odds with recent admissions from the Pentagon and elsewhere that “NATO does not know how much of its weapons and equipment the alliance’s military destroyed when it left Afghanistan.” On Monday, the Pentagon revealed that its analysts have no idea how much hardware could have fallen into the hands of the Taliban. One US official told Reuters that “everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now.”

Zakharova said the musings were “like a comic monologue from Police Academy,” the popular series of films about incompetent law enforcement officers. “NATO is a volatile and destructive military-political bloc,” she said. “The alliance has lost its bearings and control, even over itself, while claiming to play a role in international security.”

Stoltenberg described the fall of Kabul to the Taliban as ” a tragedy for the people of Afghanistan” and said that “the situation remains very difficult, and unpredictable.”

NATO troops, including those of Turkey, the US and UK, have been working to secure the only remaining airport not in the hands of the Taliban to facilitate evacuations of Afghans who aided Western military, NGOs and news organizations. Many are now fleeing for their lives, fearing reprisals.

The Taliban is designated as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia, but officials have opened high-level contacts with the Islamist group as part of efforts to put in place a peace deal and to maintain the security of Russia’s embassy in the Afghan capital.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!