In January 2022, Central Asia was featured in the foreign press in the light of protests in Kazakhstan, power cuts in three countries in the region, armed clashes on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, and online summits of Central Asian countries with China and India.
The National Interest, an American journal of international politics, wrote an article about the January protests in Kazakhstan in the context of domestic political struggles and geopolitics. The recent crisis in Kazakhstan took many by surprise. Long considered the most prosperous and stable in Central Asia, it now suddenly appears fragile and weak. To draw lessons from the crisis, for the country’s future course, and for the long-suffering U.S. policy in Central Asia, we need to understand what really happened in Kazakhstan. While the exact circumstances of the tragic events in the country may never be clear, we now know enough to draw some key conclusions. First, the key reason for this crisis is to be found in Kazakhstan’s incomplete succession of power. Second, while Russia will definitely exact a price for its intervention, Kazakhstan’s independence has not come to an end. Third, Kazakhstan will likely recover from this crisis, but it will need American and European support to proceed with much-needed reforms.
It is now clear that two separate processes took place in Kazakhstan. The first was fairly straightforward: a sharp price hike for automobile fuel led to public protests in western Kazakhstan, which rapidly spread to the country’s largest city, Almaty. Given the frequency of public protests in Kazakhstan lately, this was unsurprising. But the second was more puzzling: on the evening of January 4, bands of armed thugs suddenly took over the Almaty protests and engaged in violent attacks on authorities and government buildings. Eyewitnesses on the ground report that security forces appeared to melt away in the face of these thugs, with widespread destruction and looting as a result.
Sensing that the situation was spiraling out of control, and perhaps unable to trust his own security forces, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on January 5 appealed to the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for a “temporary” intervention. Within hours, a “peacekeeping” operation was dispatched to Kazakhstan. Appealing for outside help is a major loss of face for any government, and to legitimize this step beyond assuring it would be of short duration, Kazakh government officials blamed a nebulous international terrorist conspiracy for masterminding the violence. This has rightfully been met with skepticism. Meanwhile, Western rights advocates have emphasized the government’s repression of peaceful protests. This is not a particularly helpful definition of the events either: it hardly explains the violence against authorities in Almaty, and why the government seemed so close to losing control over the situation. In fact, the real background is to be found in Kazakhstan’s informal politics.
In a country like Kazakhstan, it is unthinkable that organized groups of armed thugs could mount a direct challenge to the state without being noticed and checked by security services. But as anyone familiar with post-Soviet ties between politics, business, and crime can tell, it is more than likely that these thugs were used by some powerful political force that masterminded this action. Some suggest President Tokayev moved first, using the public protests as an opportunity to clean house. More likely, his opponents sought to use the unrest to weaken or even unseat him, forcing a counterpunch.
Tokayev’s response to the crisis is telling: he removed Nazarbayev from his lifetime post as chairman of the National Security Council, removed and detained leaders of the national security service, and in the aftermath of the crisis forced the removal of key Nazarbayev family members from senior positions in government agencies and state corporations. Tokayev’s January 11 address to parliament did not mention his predecessor by name, but he was clear enough: he announced the closure of monopolistic companies everyone knew were connected to the Nazarbayev family and called on the many people who had gotten rich “thanks to his predecessor” to give back to the country in a new public fund he is creating. We should expect important assets to change hands in the coming weeks.
Still, it would be premature to call this a direct, personal conflict between the only two presidents that Kazakhstan has known since independence. One important unknown is the degree to which the eighty-one-year-old Nazarbayev was in control over the vast conglomerate that his family had become. The Nazarbayev family was far from a united entity, and different wings of the family were known to have fought over economic assets in the past. Thus, Nazarbayev and his family are not one and the same; parts of his family may be involved in a conflict with President Tokayev, but that does not mean the entire family or Nazarbayev himself is.
The CSTO intervention in Kazakhstan is a major coup for President Vladimir Putin, who has touted the CSTO as a Eurasian counterpart to NATO, and sought to portray it as an organization that could help regional leaders withstand both domestic and outside threats to their power. But in the past few years, neither Moscow nor the CSTO were able to rescue leaders in Armenia or Kyrgyzstan that were targeted by public protests. The lightning-speed deployment will now be an example to leaders who may previously have been skeptical about Russia’s commitment to their security.
Beyond that, there has been a tendency to view the CSTO intervention in light of Russia’s threat against Ukraine. But the situations are not comparable. There is no question that the Russian intervention will have consequences for Kazakhstan’s foreign policy and for regional security, but it does not spell the end of Kazakhstan’s independence.
Three major events in the past year or so have shown the decline in American, as well as European, influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The United States was essentially a bystander during the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late 2020. The chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan epitomized the American disengagement, and the United States did not feature in any notable way during the crisis in Kazakhstan. This slide is unfortunate, not least given the fact that every other power from Turkey in the west to Japan in the east appears to be intensifying its relations with this emerging world region. U.S. inaction in the region makes it that much harder for regional states to have a balanced foreign policy. Particularly following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is now high time for the United States to revamp its approach to Central Asia, starting with a reappraisal of relations with Kazakhstan.
If the United States is concerned about Russian influence, the solution is not to distance itself from Kazakhstan but rather to redouble engagement with the country and Tokayev. Tokayev continues to represent the best hope for a serious reform process that will make Kazakhstan both more stable and more responsive to the needs and views of its citizens. Simply because of the nature of Russia’s own political system, there is little Russia can or would do to support the reform process that Tokayev has launched. In fact, the only outside actors that could play a constructive role are the United States and Europe. Tokayev knows this and will want to re-engage with Western powers. But given his new predicament, this will be much easier if the initiative comes from Washington.
Kazakhstan must also be seen in its regional context. In the last few years, Central Asian states have engaged in an unprecedented effort to develop regional cooperation, to ensure they can manage regional problems on their own. The CSTO intervention is in this context a setback because it gives the illusion that only outside powers can provide security in the region. It is, therefore, in the U.S. interest to support efforts at regional cooperation that will, in the longer run, enable Central Asians to withstand both Russian and Chinese aspirations for hegemony.
Washington has an instrument for dialogue that is regional in nature. A first step should be to convene a meeting of the C5+1 mechanism including America and the five regional states to signal that America continues to care about developments in the region and is ready to step up efforts to support reform initiatives and regionalism in Central Asia. Building on that, the Biden administration could deploy an interagency process to fine-tune the Central Asia strategy that was adopted two years ago. While much remains to be done, these steps would kickstart a reboot of U.S. policy toward Central Asia.
OCCRP: Inside Kyrgyzstan’s Campaign to Silence Bolot Temirov
A story by the global investigative journalism network OCCRP highlights the arrest of prominent Kyrgyz investigative journalist Bolot Temirov. On 23 January 2022, dozens of people protested outside the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Bishkek against the arrest of investigative journalist Bolot Temirov on charges of drug possession, which colleagues said were politically motivated.
A day earlier, on 22 January, police stormed the office of Temirov LIVE, a new media outlet that specialises in exposing high-level corruption, forcing the publication’s staff to lie on the floor. Two employees sat on top of Temirov Bolot, the editor-in-chief. They then lifted him up and forced him to empty his pockets. Among the items found, to his horror, was a small cellophane bag. Claiming that it contained marijuana, the officers seized the editorial office computers and took the journalist away.
According to Temirov’s colleagues, the arrest was politically motivated. Temirov LIVE’s latest investigation into a corruption scheme involving Kyrgyz security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev was published on January 20.
Temirov is no stranger to intimidation. In January 2020, he was beaten by three men after an investigation into former high-ranking customs official Raimbek Matraimov was published. Temirov accused Matraimov of being behind the attack.
In the autumn of 2021, Temirov said he and his colleagues noticed suspicious cars parked outside their office. In December, a hidden camera and microphone were found in the flat he was renting.
Most disturbingly, the authorities appear to have devised a scheme to trap one of Temirov’s female employees. The young woman was romantically pursued by a man who approached her at the gym and then invited her to a weekend retreat on the lakeshore. It turned out, according to a law enforcement source, that he was an agent of the GKNB, Kyrgyzstan’s secret service. During their brief relationship, her laptop was hacked, sexual contact was secretly recorded, and a group of men posing as GKNB agents demanded information from her about Temirov’s upcoming investigations, threatening to ruin her life and her parents’ reputation if she refused to cooperate with them.
In one of the videos, the agents carried out their threats by releasing intimate footage of a young Temirov employee and using it to create a wild allegation that his organisation was pressuring her to obtain funds from foreign donors through sexual favours. The videos used donor reports, contracts and other documents apparently obtained from seized computers to portray Temirov as an agent of foreign interests.
Given Temirov’s reputation as one of Kyrgyzstan’s leading independent journalists, the authorities’ apparent systematic efforts to destroy him and his organisation deliver a crushing blow to press freedom in the country. Human rights groups warn that the climate for freedom of expression has deteriorated since President Sadyr Japarov came to power in October 2020.
Temirov was released on his own recognisance, but drug charges against him remain open. The Interior Ministry and GKNB did not respond to requests for comment. The SCNS released a statement denying any connection with the search of Temirov’s home or the compromising video that was published.
The Diplomat: Blackouts Strike Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan
On 25 January 2022, Central Asia experienced widespread blackouts, affecting millions of residents in southern Kazakhstan, much of northern Kyrgyzstan and large parts of Uzbekistan. The online magazine The Diplomat devoted an article to this, noting that the widespread blackouts highlighted a number of interrelated and pressing problems related to reliable energy supplies in the region. These include shortcomings in infrastructure development and modernisation; increased demand caused by population and industrial growth; and reduced supply, at least partly related to the effects of climate change, as manifested by low water levels in Kyrgyzstan’s reservoirs.
Across these areas, one cannot discount the influence of corruption in hollowing out projects designed to improve the regional energy infrastructure, a major focus in recent years. The January 2018 breakdown of the Bishkek Heating and Power Plant soon after a modernization project was completed by a Chinese company is illustrative in this respect.
Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Company as stating that Kazakhstan’s North-South power line, which connects northern Kazakhstan to southern Kazakhstan, where the grid then connects to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, was disconnected due to “emergency imbalances” in the Central Asian Power System (CAPS). The cause of the “emergency imbalance” has not been reported yet.
The electrical grids of the three Central Asian countries are interconnected, a system that dates to the Soviet era and was designed to help balance seasonal differences in power generation capacities across the then-Soviet Republics. Hydropower-rich and mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan would supply excess electricity to the rest of the region during the summer, and in winter receive electricity from hydrocarbon-rich Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Turkmenistan withdrew from CAPS in 2003 and Tajikistan was cut out in 2009. In 2018, the Asian Development Bank approved a $35 million grant to reconnect Tajikistan to CAPS, via Uzbekistan — an effort only made possible by the warming of political relations between the two countries after the 2016 death of Uzbek President Islam Karimiov. That project is scheduled for completion in 2022.
As the three affected countries restore electricity, they appear to be doing so disconnected from the unified grid. This means that each will supply its own energy domestically, which could prove problematic in the long run given that the factors mandating the existence of the unified grid remain.
Self-sufficiency may soon become the demand of politicians to respond to domestic anger over energy issues, but establishing energy independence (if that’s even possible) takes time and it’s winter already. All of the Central Asian states have dealt, for years, with energy outages; these have primarily affected populations outside of major cities (as an excellent upcoming article from Sher Khashimov in the February issue of our magazine explains in the context of Tajikistan). As frustration over energy woes expands into Central Asia’s population centers — just as protests over gas price hikes in Kazakhstan spread from the west of the country to Almaty — the political consequences of the region’s shaky energy infrastructure will surely rise to the surface, with potentially devastating consequences.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan agree on ceasefire after border clashes
French news agency France 24 reported on another border conflict on the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border. The violence, which erupted on the evening of 27 January 2022 and lasted all night, was the bloodiest escalation between the countries since deadly clashes last 2021. Border communities in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan regularly clash over land and water, with conflicts often involving border guards.
The next day, January 28, authorities in both countries said they had agreed to a cease-fire following an exchange of fire in which there have been casualties on both sides. The neighbours also agreed to withdraw troops, coordinate border patrols and allow traffic to move along the strategic road between the two countries.
As is usual during border clashes between Central Asia’s two poorest countries, the version of how the latest clashes started in the remote area has sparked fierce controversy.
The Kyrgyz Health Ministry said at least 11 Kyrgyz citizens are being treated for moderate injuries. The private Tajik news agency Asia Plus reported that up to 17 Tajiks were wounded and two were killed.
About 1,500 Kyrgyz citizens have been evacuated from villages near the site of the conflict at the intersection of Tajikistan’s northern Sughd Province and Kyrgyzstan’s southwestern Batken Province, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said.
Last year’s violence between the two militaries was unprecedented, killing more than 50 people. Almost half of the 970-kilometre border between the two countries is disputed, and progress on delimitation has been slow in recent years.
The long-lasting conundrum in Tajikistan’s Pamir region
Global Voices, an international journalism portal, published an article on the dismal situation in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, noting that internet blackouts and roadblocks continue even after the recent protests were suppressed.
Making up almost half of Tajikistan’s territory, the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (widely known by its Soviet-era acronym GBAO) is a mountainous province with which the Dushanbe government had historically difficult relations. Tensions have flared up into protests and a state of emergency in the past months, but the roots of the conflict go back in history.
GBAO’s population is mostly composed of Pamiris and, in the 1990s, during Tajikistan’s civil war, the leadership of the region called for independence. Through GBAO run most of the rivers that feed both the waterways and the hydroelectric plants of the country. Despite its relatively small population, around 270,000 residents, the region is of strategic importance for the government.
Emerging victorious after the civil war and the ensuing struggle for power, President Emomali Rakhmon has swiftly quashed any opposition in his 27-year rule, maintaining an iron fist at home and allegedly placing pressure on and ordering the murder of exiled political opponents. In GBAO, Rakhmon’s government applied an especially oppressive regime because of the Pamiri leadership’s earlier affiliation with opposing forces during the civil war.
It is important to note that, despite the differences in ethnicity and religion, the divisions seem to be motivated by power and socio-economic welfare. Besides being politically sidelined, in fact, the region was shunned by businesses and state enterprises.
For about a decade, clashes have intensified between local GBAO residents and officials of the Dushanbe government.
In July 2012, perhaps the darkest day in GBAO’s recent history, dozens were killed in clashes between local groups designated as rebels and Tajikistan’s military. The official tally of 42 killed was contested after hospitals and eyewitnesses said at least 200 died in the shootings. While the government hinted at the possibility that the turmoil was caused by Afghans who had crossed the border, other accounts clearly outlined a power struggle at the center of the dispute.
In the aftermath of the clashes, the region was sealed off, with communications and road transport blocked. But the militarization of the region failed to resolve the tension, which resurfaced regularly during small-scale skirmishes. In June 2014, three people, including a police officer, were killed in a shooting in Khorog, the region’s capital.
In 2018, the escalation of the conflict reached a new level, with violent clashes between local protesters and the security forces.
Under heavy scrutiny from the authorities, in the autumn of 2018, youth protests were harshly repressed leading to violence on the night of November 4, when special forces opened fire against GBAO residents, injuring two. Always cited as a region where crime thrives by the central authorities, GBAO is often placed under emergency measures, which limit freedoms and keeps communication and movement monitored.
The 2018 incident sparked a new wave of protests, which were again repressed, although the government agreed to appoint an authoritative local figure, Yodgor Faizov, as the new head of the region.
Faizov kept his post until November 2021, when tensions between local residents and the authorities heated up again. At the end of November, as thousands crowded the streets of Khorog in protest against abuse of power by the police, the government moved in with special forces and attempted to suppress the demonstration. Two protesters were killed and more than one thousand were arrested, according to eyewitnesses.
Following the arrests, the region was once again locked out of communication and six military block posts were erected to monitor travel in and out of the region, only allowing for a limited number of supply trucks. The internet shutdown, which continues to date, has lasted for more than one month, preventing any independent reporting from the region. In an attempt to appease the protesters, the government promised certain concessions, including an independent investigation on the incident that provoked the tensions. Yet, the requests of the local population were later disregarded.
Until the local population is allowed to select its own leaders, the central government will have to constantly balance the region’s dissatisfaction and the need to keep the situation under control.
China-Central Asia neighborly relations a good lesson to Washington
The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper specialising in international news coverage, devoted an article to the online summit of the heads of state of Central Asia and the PRC. Chinese President Xi Jinping held a virtual summit in Beijing on 25 January 2022 to mark 30 years of diplomatic relations between China and the five Central Asian countries. This is China’s first major diplomatic action in Central Asia this year, and the first Heads of State summit between China and the five Central Asian countries.
The four principles summed up by the Chinese chairman at the meeting – mutual respect, good-neighbourly friendship, solidarity in difficult times and mutual benefit – are the code of success for the 30-year co-operation between China and the five Central Asian countries, he said. By adhering to these principles, all sides have not only resolved border issues, based on mutual understanding and agreement, but have also become “good neighbours, partners, friends and brothers”. Over the past 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, the trade volume between China and the five Central Asian countries has grown more than 100 times, and China’s direct investment in the five countries has exceeded $14 billion. Today, China has become one of the most important trade and investment partners of these five countries. It is worth noting that Xi Jinping first proposed building the Silk Road Economic Belt during a visit to Kazakhstan in 2013.
The Global Times believes that at a historic moment of 30 years of diplomatic relations between China and Central Asia, the new model of international relations built by the six countries could be a good lesson for Washington by analysing the experience of the two sides’ exchanges over the years.
For some time Washington has sought to provoke a ‘competition’ between China and Russia in Central Asia by viewing the region as a ‘pawn’ in a game of big powers. In reality, China and Russia have deepened their exchanges and cooperation with Central Asian states. At the same time, the Sino-Russian comprehensive strategic partnership has reached an all-time high in the new era. This view emerges again from the recent situation in Central Asia. But if Washington is most invested in driving a wedge between China and Russia, the opposite effect is occurring.
The Beijing Winter Olympics start on 4 February. Chinese President Xi, President Putin and the heads of state of the five Central Asian countries will gather for the opening ceremony of Beijing 2022. Would anything be more eloquent than this photo, notes the newspaper.
At the Centre: On India-Central Asia summit
The Indian Express, analysing the India-Central Asia online summit, writes that India must keep pace with changes in the Central Asian region.
As the joint statement at the end of the India-Central Asia virtual summit on Thursday noted, ties between India and the region have been historically close, with “civilisational, cultural, trade and people-to-people linkages”, but the lack of access to land routes, and the situation in Afghanistan are among the biggest challenges. Hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the Presidents of the five Central Asian Republics (CARs), it was a first, building on years of dialogue. The summit also came after the meeting of NSAs in Delhi, where they built on several common themes of concern and priority.
To begin with, there is the problem of routing trade — a paltry $2 billion, spent mostly on Kazakhstan’s energy exports to India. In comparison, China’s CAR trade figures have exceeded $41 billion — they could double by 2030 — apart from the billions of dollars invested in the Belt and Road Initiative. With Pakistan denying India transit trade, New Delhi’s other option is to smoothen the route through Iran’s Chabahar port, but that will involve greater investment in rail and road routes to Iran’s northern boundaries with the CARs, something India is hesitant to do in the face of U.S. sanctions.
A third option is to use the Russia-Iran International North-South Transport Corridor via Bandar Abbas port, but this is not fully operational and at least two CARs (Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) are not members. India too, has dragged its feet over TAPI gas pipeline plans (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India), due to supply guarantees, given the tensions with Pakistan. Finally, there is Afghanistan: the tenuous link between Central Asia and South Asia, where after the Taliban takeover, there is no official government, a humanitarian crisis is building, and there are worries of terrorism and radicalism spilling over its boundaries. Each theme has been outlined in the summit joint statement as areas to work upon. They have also agreed to more structured engagement, including the setting up of joint working groups, on Afghanistan and Chabahar, and more educational and cultural opportunities.
While the attempt by India to institutionalise exchanges and press the pedal on trade, investment and development partnerships with the CARs is timely, it is by no means the only country strengthening its ties here. While Russia is the most strategic player, China is now the biggest development and infrastructure partner to the countries. The CAR Presidents held a similar virtual summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier. Pakistan has also increased its outreach to the CARs, signing transit trade agreements, offering trade access to the Indian Ocean at Gwadar and Karachi. India will need to move nimbly to ensure it stays in step with the changes, and to make certain the future of ties more closely resembles the deep ties of the distant past.
The Quest to Extinguish the Flames of Turkmenistan’s Terrifying ‘Gates of Hell’ Firepit
The American science magazine Smithsonian has written about the Turkmen President’s desire to extinguish a 50-year-old fire in the Darwaz gas crater.
For more than five decades, a huge fiery crater has been burning in Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert, and President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov wants to put an end to it. The country’s leader appeared on state television on 8 January 2022, calling on officials to find a solution to put out the fire of the large burning crater known as the “Gates of Hell”.
Efforts to curb the infernal blaze known as the Darvaz gas crater have been ongoing since it first broke out in 1971. The origin of the fire is unclear, but popular rumour has it that the crater formed in 1971 after an accident at a Soviet gas field when a drilling rig collapsed into the desert. Soviet specialists set fire to the collapsed site to burn out the methane, assuming the fire would last only a day or two. However, local geologists claim that the crater formed in the late 1960s and did not catch fire until the 1980s.
Part of the mystery of the origin of the crater is contributed to by Turkmenistan’s isolation from the rest of the world. Considered the second most isolated country (after North Korea), Turkmenistan receives fewer than 10,000 tourists a year. Berdymukhamedov’s eccentric behaviour is one of the few things known about the country. He rapped about his horse, raised a gold bar in front of his office, had a giant gold statue of a Turkmen sheepdog built, and did laps in his rally car in front of the Gates of Hell to dispel rumours of his death.
Turkmen officials believe the closure has good environmental reasons, saying it is a waste of natural resources; that methane gas is leaking from the crater, which is harmful to the atmosphere; and that the gas has a negative impact on the health of nearby residents.
Previous attempts to extinguish the fire have been unsuccessful. The last attempt was made in 2010, when Berdymukhamedov unsuccessfully asked experts to find a way to extinguish the flames. The “gates of hell” are undoubtedly releasing valuable and environmentally harmful methane into the atmosphere.
Turkmenistan is located in one of the largest natural gas fields in the world, and the resource is one of the country’s main sources of income. Although it is not known how much methane lies beneath the quarry and whether drilling beneath it is even possible, the duration of the fire suggests that the area could be a gold mine. The country currently has the world’s fourth-largest reserves of natural gas.
Taliban will not receive planes and helicopters flown to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
The Indian Narrative writes that the US Department of Defence announced on January 18, 2022, that military planes and helicopters of the former Afghan army will not be returned to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
About 100 U.S.-trained Afghan Air Force pilots left the country with their families for Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in more than 60 aircraft, including A-29 light attack aircraft and Black Hawk helicopters, days before the Taliban took over Kabul on Aug. 15.
The Taliban regime has demanded that Uzbekistan and Tajikistan return the planes, claiming they belong to Afghanistan. But the US has made it clear that they will not be returned.
The Pentagon added that the fate of these warplanes and helicopters, which were donated by the US to the Afghan government, was being negotiated. The planes are part of about $85 billion worth of US weapons left in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US troops last year.
There is speculation that these aircraft will become part of a new US base in the region, for which every possibility is being explored.
Earlier in January 2022, the Taliban warned Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to immediately return the Afghan planes and helicopters that had been taken by soldiers of the ousted Ghani government to these two neighbouring countries.
More than 40 per cent of the Afghan Air Force aircraft have been withdrawn. Before the fall of the government in August, there were more than 164 operational aircraft in Afghanistan, but only 70 were left behind. The Taliban have no trained pilots or qualified engineers to handle these aircraft. According to the report, about 50 aircraft were rendered unusable at Kabul International Airport before the final US withdrawal.