WASHINGTON, 29 September 2021, (TON): President Joe Biden's top military leaders are expected to face some of the most contentious hearings in memory this week over the chaotic end to the war in Afghanistan, which cost the lives of US troops and civilians and left the Taliban back in power.

The senate and house committees overseeing the US military will hold hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, where Republicans are hoping to zero in on mistakes that Biden's administration made toward the end of the two-decade-old war.

That will follow similar questioning two weeks ago that saw US Secretary of State Antony Blinken staunchly defending the administration, even as he faced calls for his resignation.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to praise American personnel who helped airlift 124,000 Afghans out of the country, an operation that also cost the lives of 13 US troops and scores of Afghans in a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport.

A US official told Reuters “Austin is expected to "be frank about the things we could have done better.”

That will also certainly include the US military's last drone strike before withdrawing, which the Pentagon acknowledges killed 10 civilians, most of them children and not members of the militant Islamic State (IS) group it thought it was attacking.