A controlled detonation by American forces, which could be heard across Kabul, has destroyed Eagle Base, the last CIA outpost outside of Kabul airport, US officials said on Friday.
The demolition of the base was to ensure that no devices or information left behind could get into the hands of the Taliban.
Eagle Base, which began in a former brick factory at the beginning of the war, was used throughout the conflict. It grew from a small outpost to a sprawling center where the anti-terrorism forces of the Afghan intelligence services were trained.
These forces were some of the only ones who continued to fight after the government collapsed, according to current and former officials.
“You were an exceptional unit,” said Mick Mulroy, a former CIA officer who served in Afghanistan. “They have been one of the most important ways the Afghan government has kept the Taliban in check for the past 20 years. They were the last to fight and they suffered heavy losses. “
Native Afghans knew little about the grassroots. The terrain was extremely safe and designed to be nearly impossible to penetrate. Walls up to ten feet high surrounded the grounds and a thick metal gate quickly slid open and shut to let cars in.
Inside, the cars had to go through three external security checkpoints, where the vehicles were searched and documents checked before they were allowed to enter the base.
During the early years of the war, a subordinate CIA officer was put in charge of the salt mine, a detention facility near Eagle Base. There, the officer ordered a prisoner, Gul Rahman, to take off his clothes and chain them to a wall. He died of hypothermia. A CIA board recommended disciplinary action but was overruled.
A former CIA contractor said leveling the base would not have been an easy task. In addition to burning documents and crushing hard drives, sensitive devices also had to be destroyed so that they did not fall into the hands of the Taliban. Eagle Base, the former contractor said, is not an embassy where documents can be burned quickly.
The destruction of the base was planned and had nothing to do with the massive explosion at the airport, in which an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers were killed. But the detonation hours after the attack on the airport alarmed many people in Kabul, who feared that it was another terrorist attack.
The official American mission in Afghanistan to evacuate US citizens and Afghan allies ends next Tuesday. The Taliban have said the evacuation effort cannot be extended, and Biden government officials say continuing beyond that date would significantly increase the risks for both Afghans and US forces.
