NATO chief: Afghan leaders responsible for military collapse

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is blaming a failure of Afghan leadership for the swift collapse of the country’s armed forces but says the alliance must also uncover flaws in its military training effort

BRUSSELS -- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday blamed a failure of Afghan leadership for the swift collapse of the country’s Western-backed armed forces, but he conceded that the alliance must also address flaws in its military training program. NATO has been leading international security efforts in Afghanistan since 2003 but wound up combat operations in 2014 to focus on training Afghanistan's national security forces. NATO helped build up an army some 300,000 troops, but that force withered in the face of the Taliban offensive in just days. “What we have seen in the last few weeks was a military and political collapse at a speed which had not been anticipated,” Stoltenberg told reporters after chairing a meeting of NATO ambassadors. He said parts of the Afghan army “fought bravely,” but that “ultimately, the Afghan political leadership failed to stand up to the Taliban and to achieve the peaceful solution that Afghans desperately wanted.”