End of the Afghanistan mission: the Bundeswehr flies out the last soldiers

The Bundeswehr has ended its mission in Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defense announced that the last soldiers have left the area of ​​operation. This ends the mission after 20 years.

The Bundeswehr has ended its mission in Afghanistan, which began almost 20 years ago. The last remaining German soldiers on the NATO mission “Resolute Support” were flown out of the “Camp Marmal” camp in Mazar-i-Sharif by the air force Federal Ministry of Defense.

According to the dpa news agency, the members of the Special Forces Command (KSK), who were relocated to the north of Afghanistan to secure the camp, were on board the aircraft. After a stopover in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, the machines are expected in the morning at the Wunstorf air force base, not far from Hanover.

“A historical chapter comes to an end”

“After almost 20 years of service, the last soldiers in our Bundeswehr left Afghanistan tonight. They are now on their way home,” said Federal Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is currently visiting the USA.

With the withdrawal, a historical chapter came to an end, an intensive mission that challenged and shaped the Bundeswehr and in which the troops had proven themselves in combat. “A mission in which members of our armed forces were injured in body and soul, in which people lost their lives, in which we had to complain about dead,” said Kramp-Karrenbauer. “My thoughts are with you, they will not be forgotten.”

Over the past 20 years, around 150,000 Bundeswehr soldiers have been deployed in the Hindu Kush, many of them several times. 59 German soldiers were killed in the country, 35 of them were killed in combat or in attacks.

Rapid troop withdrawal

The Bundeswehr recently had to push the withdrawal significantly after the US government under President Joe Biden had accelerated the withdrawal. As the largest provider of troops, the USA had initially decided to withdraw by September 11th, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks by the Islamist network Al-Qaeda in the USA. Now there was pressure for a withdrawal by July 4th – the US national holiday.

The security situation in Afghanistan worsened with the start of the withdrawal of international troops. Since May 1, the militant Islamist Taliban have re-conquered around 90 of the approximately 400 districts in the country, including in the former areas of operation of the Bundeswehr in the north. It remained unclear until the very end whether there would be an attack on the camp. The Bundeswehr had brought reinforcements to the camp.

Country experts warn that the Taliban could plunge the country into a bloody civil war again. And wipe out all the progress of the past 20 years.

First mandate in Afghanistan in December 2001

The deployment in Afghanistan marked a new chapter for the Bundeswehr. It began after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and to provide military support to the United States.

The Bundestag passed the first Afghanistan mandate on December 22, 2001. In January 2002 the first forces arrived in the capital, Kabul. “On January 14, 2002, German soldiers took part in a patrol in the war-torn city for the first time,” said the Bundeswehr in retrospect.

Germany was the leading nation in the north of Afghanistan and was involved in this role until the end of the NATO training mission “Resolute Support”. The opposition and the Armed Forces Commissioner Eva Högl have repeatedly called for a review of the mission in order to better understand progress and failures and to draw conclusions for future and ongoing missions.