NATO Chief Blames Afghan Political Leaders For Military Collapse

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said a failure in Afghan leadership led to the Taliban takeover.

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.