They call it the “mini-Pentagon” — a white marble building in the heart of Afghanistan’s capital built with U.S. funds to serve as the headquarters of a modern military more than a decade in the making.
But the newly constructed building is a world apart from the front-lines of Afghanistan’s unfinished war, where soldiers huddled at exposed checkpoints increasingly rely on police and local militias, and where logistical bottlenecks almost led to the loss of a key northern city to insurgents who swept across the northern plain in April.
US officials told The Associated Press during an exclusive tour of the building that the new $160 million Defence Ministry will help the military streamline its operations and more effectively counter the Taliban now that the US and NATO combat mission has officially ended.