An Afghan military aircraft has been shot down by Uzbekistan as it tried to flee to the country, the crew are reportedly safe.
It is understood that the A-29 super Tucano tried to cross the Uzbek border, Uzbekistan’s defence ministry was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency on Monday.
Footage from Twitter, shown below, shows a man wearing an Afghan military uniform being given aid by a group of people.
An Afghan military jet has crashed after crossing the border into Uzbekistan and its pilot ejected and survived: Uzbek defence ministry. pic.twitter.com/UkpCxNcrYf
— Arvind Chauhan 💮🛡️ (@Arv_Ind_Chauhan) August 16, 2021
Aircraft wreckage can also be seen.
Information via @topnewsuz pic.twitter.com/WQH4Eu45bg
— Arvind Chauhan 💮🛡️ (@Arv_Ind_Chauhan) August 16, 2021
The aircraft appears to be an A-29 Super Tucano. Twenty of these light attack aircraft were purchased for the Afghan Air Force in 2014. The first four aircraft arrived in 2016. In 2017, the Afghan Air Force conducted roughly 2,000 airstrike sorties, about 40 a week. There is no longer an Afghan air force.
Last night, we reported that an American C-17 evacuated 800 people in single flight.
In addition, footage has emerged showing Afghan civilians clinging to the undercarriage of transport aircraft leaving Kabul with a number appearing to fall from a C-17 while in flight.
You can read more about that by following the link below.
Additionally, the first flight of evacuated personnel landed at RAF Brize Norton in the UK from Kabul late last night. The flight consisted of British Embassy staff and British citizens, say the Ministry of Defence.
As part of Operation PITTING, the UK Armed Forces are enabling the evacuation of British personnel from Afghanistan.
“On Sunday 16th August the first flight of evacuated personnel arrived at RAF Brize Norton in the UK. The flight constituted of British Embassy staff and British Nationals.
British forces from 16 Air Assault Brigade arrived in the Afghan capital over the weekend on Op PITTING to support the evacuation of British Nationals and former British staff eligible for relocation under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy.”
For a country not many know about, they seem pretty well-armed. Mig 29’s and Mig-35’s seem to be numerous.
Brave men. If the ANA had shown the same courage as their airforce pilots this would be a very different news day.
All the ANA was good for was wasting American taxpayer money and at the first sign of the Taliban either turning tail and running or surrendering. A soldier’s job is too protect the innocent and the weak. Hopefully the get what they deserve.
Do not forget the UK taxpayers money, and our effort. The ANA much like the AUP, and their Iraqi counterparts struggle to be effective without a lot of support. Good at standing on checkpoints, and not much else.
You need to reconsider that. 10s of 1000s have died. Many have been executed by the Taliban. Afghanistan is a third world country and we tried to build a first world army. They have no industrial base, most soldiers can’t read or write and they were completely dependent upon western logistics & finance. Withdraw that and morale collapses because they know that sooner or later they are going to lose when the air strikes, the bullets and beans run out. Recent events were entirely predictable because the same happened to the ARVN in 1975, shattered morale shatters armies.
I see what you are saying Rob, but the synergy between the ANA and the ARVN isn’t the same.
Though the ARVN were entirely US equipped and trained, there funding was reduced in 1972 and virtually stopped in 1973 as Congress wouldn’t support it.
ARVN units supported by their Airforce, actually took on a major NVA offensive in 1973 and beat it…
Two years on, the lack of soldiers wages and shortage of spares, caused a total collapse.
The ANA were still properly supported, they simply turned and fled their posts, leaving the population to the mercy of the Taliban…
This collapse is not on us, it’s on the ANA, who had the numbers, equipment and training to keep the Taliban at bay …. They failed utterly!!
Yes, I think you are right to draw a distinction between the ANA and the ARVN. The ARVN was more spirited and well equipped and led. Vietnam was an independent Buddhist country for 900 years before it was colonised by the French. The Vietnam war was mainly a civil war between a communist North and a capitalist South. The US was right about that. The Jesuits landed there in the 16c and French brought their catholicism in 1860. Today about 8% of the population is Christian and about 5% Buddhist. Most of the population follow a Vietnamese folk religion…which I interpret to mean grandmothers rule. Vietnam is a coastal state. The population had a totally different cultural mindset to landlocked Islamic Afghanistan. The Afghans don’t get out much. I think the ARVN would have won had the US not withheld air support.
While the ARVN performed better than the ANA, they both could not face their opponents without the US in country.
No argument that the ANA were shockingly bad these last 2 weeks but they couldn’t operate without the logistics and support the US provided. For example, they couldn’t get more Mil Mi-17 helicopters (due to sanctions), which they were capable of maintaining themselves. They were then given Blackhawks which they were not capable of maintaining so as soon as the US contractors pulled out, the helicopters became inoperable which in turn meant no ammo, food and water supplies for the isolated ANA positions.
Along with the support problems, poor training and morale, two major themes that led to both the ARVN and ANA failing was a lack of leadership and corruption. It’s hard to ask expect an average soldier to fight and die for corrupt incompetent officers and government leaders while the latter were busy pocketing the salaries and supplies meant for them while the guy in the field had nothing.
Fair points Brad … The real difference is that the ARVN could and did undertake successful independent operations against the NVA, post US withdrawal.
Congress cut off their funding and that screwed the pooch over a two year period.
Corruption was an issue however and the Saigon government was always propped up by the US.
The ANA we’re utterly incapable of independent operations, we simply built a house on quick sand and spent twenty years filling in the cracks and propping it up… It was always going to collapse as soon as we walked off the building site.
I was referring to Western troops that were sent over there to help the Afghan people.
It also appears that they were undermined by local politicians in various towns and cities who had done deals to surrender to the Taliban in return for no reprisals against the politicians or their families. The ANA were undermined, un-supplied and unsupported in every direction it seems.
Remove the foundations of any building, it will fall down!
The West(mainly the US), was providing
the supporting structures for the Afghan Army. US combat ended in 2016.
The US was getting good value money from a small token force deployed.
Not sure what you’re referring to as the ANA was probably the worst army performance wise in the world. They would refuse to fight and turn and run unless they had US/UK or NATO support. How is that good value for money? This latest mass surrender by them the last few days proves they were nothing more than idiots wearing a uniform and taking a Western paycheck.
I can’t argue with that Dan…..
One of the problems was that by the time their political and military superiors had taken their cut they rarely saw their pay.
The Afghan Army was basically undermined in the end by local warlords doing deals with the Taliban. UK taxpayers money was wasted first and foremost by the seeming inability of British politicians to keep there noses out of other people’s affairs. The class case was Libya. A disaster from start to finish and the security of the British homeland was undermined because mass migration flows and even terrorist attacks flowed directly from it.
From Al Jazeera:
Hundreds of Afghan soldiers have fled to Uzbekistan with 22 military planes and 24 helicopters last weekend, including one aircraft that collided with an escorting Uzbek fighter jet causing both to crash, Uzbekistan has said.
A total of 585 Afghan soldiers have arrived on aircraft and 158 more crossed the border on foot on Sunday, Uzbek prosecutor general’s office said in a statement.
Hope they are arrested. Cowards.
They were retreating in order to join Ahmed Massoud’s Tajik fighters in order to continue the fight against the Taliban.. Ahmed Massoud’s father was assassinated by the Taliban a few days before September 11 2001.
Shame they don’t put half as much effort into fighting for their freedom as they do running away…
Agreed. A very poor effort at defending their own country.
Perhaps they plan to mount a guerilla campaign?
Why on Earth are the Usbeks shooting them down? In their place Id be happy to get my hands on some free aircraft …
They have no idea who’s flying in that plane or what their intentions are. Also I doubt they even knew what type of aircraft it was. They probably tried to contact them but got no reply.
The Usbek airforce not knowing the only aircraft their most dangerous (instable) neighbor has? Nah.
And I dont think that US trained pilots wouldnt even be able to communicate on the proper international channels …
Maybe the Afghan pilots were just in a complete panic mode, though …
Well, Uzbekistan looks like a country with possibilities so good luck to them I suppose.
When the dust settles on these recent days the significant geopolitical change is that Afghanistan has transitioned from being the buffer state between the 19th century buffer separating the British and Russian empires and in the 20th century being fought over by the US and Russia into having its own identity.
We might not like their brand of religion but the Taliban will being peace and order to the country and do speak for the majority of the common people who are tired of war. We must hope that the sacrifices made over the last 20 years have planted a sapling of western culture which is strong enough to survive and thrive. Its up to the women of Afghanistan now.
I very much doubt this is an end to anything. Remember Taliban means student and those students come from Madrassa schools in Pakistan. In many ways this was a proxy war by Pakistan to secure their northern flank; the last thing they wanted was a pro-western & pro-Indian democracy at their backs. Now the focus for those ‘students’ will re-focus on Kashmir and that could be very dangerous for everyone involved.
Well, you may be right. We’ll have to see how things go. I see the Taliban have declared Afghanistan to be a ‘emirate’ rather than ‘caliphate’ which I think means that the political leader of the nation will not be the religious leader. I think this is a hopeful sign as regards how Afghanistan will be governed internally and how it will interact with the outside world.
They are just playing the international game to ensure west don’t come back. Give it a year homosexuals will be thrown of buildings, 12 year olds married off and raped, see an ANA officer already had eyes gouged out!
The west will regret this betrayal of allies, we look weak snd will encourage our enemies.
Have to hope the eye gouging was an isolated incident. As I have posted elsewhere I think Vietnam was a betrayal but withdrawal from Afghanistan is not. I agree with Biden. This is a case of if you are in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging.
It has all the hallmarks of a Caliphate except in name, the worlds largest one has just been created.
Just reading up on the origins of the Taliban it seems they are a Sunni Islam revivalist movement and political party whose Pashtun roots go back to the Indian mutiny (war of independence). It seems they believed in the doctrine of composite nationalism, that the Indian nation could accommodate peoples of different religion. They would have opposed partition. It may well be that the extremism of recent decades has been an aberration or a learning phase. Their victory over government forces means I think that the country has matured past the phase of being ‘governed’ by tribal war lords. Internationally they will be more straightforward to deal with. Country wide Sharia probably also means a more consistent and fairer community based justice system. News reports so far indicate that the Afghan army laid down their arms on a promise of no retribution. I’m not aware of any reports of prisoners being abused. Kabul city is calm and people are going about their business. Sharia does legitimise eye for an eye justice but does not mandate it. And while Islam is an ‘old testament’ religion where women are second class citizens there is progress in women’s education and freedoms in much of the middle east.
When the Taliban were last in office, they added a small group of Arab knife fighters to their strength called “Al Queda”. Those mercenaries killed tens of thousand Afghan civilians.
The significant geopolitical change is, that Biden has outed himself as utterly incompetent to handle foreign policy. China and Russia will not let pass this unique time frame.
Morning McZ. The view of Al Queda as Taliban mercenaries is not a narrative I have heard. My own view is that these two groups represent opposite ends of the spectrum of responses to the conflict intrinsic clan based rule by feudal war lords. Al Queda was tolerated and some say encouraged by the wealthy feudal regimes in the Gulf. These regimes govern top down. They pay lip service to Islam to the extent they can use it as a tool to control the population. At the other end of the spectrum is the Taliban who can be compared to ‘born again’ Islam zealots seeking a more bottom up community based society where ‘true’ i.e. socially equal Islam is implemented. So what I think we are seeing is the Afghan version of the French or Russian revolution. In these revolutions the church was seen by revolutionary leaders as part of the establishment and ditched, although the people by and large kept faith. What we see in Afghanistan is that the Taliban leaders have kept the belief in the origins of the movement, which go back in fact to the Indian mutiny. They wanted an inclusive multi faith India and are saying that the new Afghanistan will be peaceful and inclusive. It won’t be a moral free for all like the west but its their choice and we should respect it.
China and Russia will be disappointed that the US has gotten smart and realised it doesn’t need to pour dollars into a never ending pit. The US will be economically stronger which is good for us all.
cheers
“The significant geopolitical change is, that Biden has outed himself as utterly incompetent to handle foreign policy.”
Excuse me? It was TRUMP who decided to get out as fast as possible, to please his isolationist base. Just like he dropped the Sysrian Kurds.
It was Trump who made a deal with the Taliban. Without consulting with the Afghan government or any of his allies, who went in to support the US for 20 years just to be left hanging in the wind, and getting nothing but insults from the orange bastard.
Biden was handed a hot mess and now has to try to make the best of a horrible situation. Maybe he could have done better. But he didnt cause this FUBAR. Trump did.
The truth is that both Trump and Biden are incompetent.
Apparently Ben Wallace is mighty angry at the Foreign Office because their diplomats and officials all rushed onto the first aircraft out leaving the Army to try and work out how to run the Visa application processing system for the people we needed to save with the computers trashed and the files destroyed.
IMAGINE,
Light Attack aircraft against a pick up truck with a gun strapped to the roof.
And you want to welcome the spinless to the world.