VIRAL: Pentagon denies leaving behind US military service dogs in Afghanistan

The Pentagon recently announced that the longest war in the history of the United States is now over as all the US military troops have been airlifted safely from Afghanistan, after which, a viral photo of US military service dogs started doing rounds on social media, which insinuated that they had been abandoned by the US government amid the current Afghanistan crisis.

After the reports of US military dogs being abandoned at the Kabul airport went viral, the Pentagon issued an official statement, disrupting these claims. The Department of Defense stated that it did not leave any dogs at the Hamid Karzai airport in Afghanistan, including US military service dogs.

A spokesperson from the US government told a reputed media platform, “Photos circulating online were animals under the care of the Kabul Small Animal Rescue, not dogs under the care of the U.S. military.” He further said, “Despite an ongoing complicated and dangerous retrograde mission, U.S. forces went to great lengths to assist the Kabul Small Animal Rescue as much as possible.”

The mission of the US government was to evacuate US citizens and vulnerable Afghanis, not animals, the spokesperson further said. Though the US government did not question the authenticity of the image, it stated that the dogs shown in the photo were stray dogs from Afghanistan and not US military service dogs.

The photo posted on several social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram showed several US military service dogs in cages at the Kabul airport, seemingly abandoned. The news immediately went viral and received a lot of backlash from people across the world.

An open letter was penned by an animal welfare group by the name of American Humane, criticizing the decision of the US military to leave behind its service dogs at the Kabul airport. Images shared on social media were posted with captions that suggested that the US military had left these dogs behind.

Former US President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., also posted the news on Twitter. He wrote, “The Biden administration didn’t just abandon Americans in Afghanistan. They even abandoned hard-working service dogs!!!”

The Pentagon maintains that no US military service dogs have been left behind by the government, and the claims of this news have been falsified.