Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib implied this week that the troops’ withdrawal had come sooner than expected.

In an interview with VICE Media, Mohib said: “We weren’t expecting it to come this soon so there hasn’t really been a proper transition,” he said.

Mohib said the looming withdrawal has “put us at risk” in some ways but added that it forced the Afghan government to “expedite self-reliance and self-sufficiency with our security forces at a much faster pace than when what we were preparing for.”

He said the concern was that “the Taliban could see this as an opportunity to attack us like they did and think that they could overrun a couple of provinces and put us in a situation where it may be hard for us to take them back.”

“The capabilities we have built over the last 20 years have equipped us to be able to do the job relatively well. We have always emphasized that it’s not the number of Us troops, it’s the capabilities that they provide us to do what we need to do but nonetheless we’re preparing for that zero troops option.

“There were conditionalities attached to the US Taliban agreement. The Taliban have not met that; one of them was a reduction in violence and we have not yet seen the Taliban to really comply with that and we are seeing an increased number of attacks.

“It seems like they still think they can take power by force in Afghanistan.”

Mohib also said the Taliban should take peace negotiations seriously.

“The Afghan people want an end to this war,” he said.

VICE Media also visited an almost deserted US military base in Helmand. Once a base for thousands of foreign troops, the base is now virtually a ghost town and only the skeleton of the camp remains.

Tents, furniture and brick structures lie discarded or destroyed, with some locals blaming the US military for having destroyed non-military equipment that could have been handed over to the Afghan security forces.

US and Afghan officials said earlier this month that US forces will hand over bases and military equipment, that is not being shipped to the United States, to Afghan forces.

“The war needs equipment; it needs strong management and strong planning,” said Shaoor Gul Pashtoon, a former commander of 203 corps.

On the other hand, Dean Thompson the acting assistant secretary of south & central Asian affairs at the US State Department said in a visit to Kabul that Washington would provide continued assistance to Afghanistan.

This comes as after US-Forces commander in Afghanistan General Austin Scott Miller said Sunday the evacuation of some bases has already started in Afghanistan.

“We will turn over the bases primarily to the Ministry of Defense and other Afghan forces,” Miller told reporters in a press conference in Kabul on Sunday, adding that: “The notification day will be the first of May but at the same time as we start taking local actions, we have already begun that”.

The US is expected to hand over three military bases and one airport to the Afghan forces in the next two weeks as part of the US plan for the full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by September 11, sources said last week.