Stop violating airspace

The Taliban yesterday warned of consequences if the United States did not stop flying drones over Afghan airspace.

"The US has violated all international rights and laws as well as its commitments made to the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, with the operation of these drones in Afghanistan," the Taliban said in a statement on Twitter.

"We call on all countries, especially United States, to treat Afghanistan in light of international rights, laws and commitments ... in order to prevent any negative consequences."

US officials were not immediately available to comment. The Taliban Islamist militia swept back into power in Afghanistan last month after most US and other Western troops left, ending a military and diplomatic mission that began soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, reports Reuters.

Meanwhile, United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley, appearing before Congress on Tuesday, have acknowledged a series of failures that led to the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

"It is clear and obvious that the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted with the Taliban now in power in Kabul," General Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee, warning that Afghanistan today appears headed towards civil war.

"The fact that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away – in many cases without firing a shot – took us all by surprise," Austin, a former four-star general who served in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"It would be dishonest to claim otherwise."

"My analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal, without meeting specific and necessary conditions, risks losing the substantial gains made in Afghanistan, damaging US worldwide credibility and could precipitate a general collapse of the NSF and the Afghan government, resulting in a complete Taliban takeover, or general civil war," Milley said. He called it a "strategic failure".