The departure from Bagram was planned with Afghans, according to the US.

Bagram is the eighth and last military post that the US has turned over to Afghan forces as it prepares to withdraw far sooner than the self-imposed September 11 deadline.

The US announced on Tuesday that the Bagram facility had been given over following negotiations and cooperation at “higher levels” in both the Afghan government and military, disputing an Afghan commander’s story of Americans leaving quietly in the night without informing anybody.

According to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, the Afghans had their “last discussions” 48 hours earlier, and there was a “broad agreement” and “again, as we moved closer, more specificity was offered to Afghan authorities.”

For operational security concerns, he admitted, “we didn’t get into the specific hour at which all US would depart Bagram.”

“We (had heard) some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram… and eventually, by seven o’clock in the morning [last Friday], we knew that it was verified that they had already departed Bagram,” said Mir Asadullah Kohistani, a prominent Afghan officer who is the new commander of the Bagram facility.

“I can’t answer for the degree of knowledge that flowed down the Afghan chain of command,” Kirby said when asked about the Afghan commander’s statements. “But I can tell you that Afghan authorities, civilian and military, were adequately coordinated with and told about the turnover.”

The Afghans were given a tour of the Bagram base, according to Kirby, so they could have a sense of what was about to be handed over to them.

Bagram is the eighth and last such site that the US has given over to Afghan troops as it draws to a close its two-decade military presence in the country and prepares to depart far ahead of President Joe Biden’s self-imposed September 11 deadline.

Bagram is the eighth and last such site that the US has given over to Afghan troops as it draws to a close its two-decade military presence in the country and prepares to depart far ahead of President Joe Biden’s self-imposed September 11 deadline.