WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden will withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan before this year’s 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, finally ending America’s longest war despite mounting fears of a Taliban victory, officials said on Tuesday.
The drawdown delays only by around five months an agreement with the Taliban by former president Donald Trump to pull troops, amid a growing consensus in Washington that little more can be achieved.
The decision came as Turkey announced an international peace conference on Afghanistan in hopes, however modest, of reaching a power-sharing arrangement that can bring stability to a nation battered by nearly 40 years of war.
Biden, who will make an announcement on Wednesday, had earlier mused about keeping a residual force to strike at Al Qaeda or an emergent IS extremist threat or making withdrawal contingent on progress on the ground or in slow-moving peace talks.
In the end, he decided to do neither and will order a complete withdrawal other than limited US personnel to guard the US installations including the imposing embassy in Kabul, a senior official said.
“The president has judged that a conditions-based approach, which has been the approach of the past two decades, is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Under the Trump administration’s February 2020 deal with the Taliban, all US troops would leave by May 2021 in return for the insurgents’ promise not to back Al Qaeda and other foreign extremists — the original reason for the 2001 invasion.
The Biden official said the withdrawal would begin in May and that the delay was largely logistical, with troops possibly out of Afghanistan well before September 11. The official warned the Taliban — who are observing a truce with US but not with Afghan forces — not to strike coalition forces as they leave, saying that in response to any attack “we will hit back hard.”
TALIBAN ‘CONFIDENT’
Fighting will likely grind on. A threat assessment report published on Tuesday by the director of national intelligence said the Taliban “is confident it can achieve military victory.”
“Afghan forces continue to secure major cities and other government strongholds, but they remain tied down in defensive missions and have struggled to hold recaptured territory or re-establish a presence in areas abandoned in 2020,” it said.
Afghan civilians have long paid a disproportionate price in the fighting and the rise of the Taliban has raised particular fears among many Afghan women. — AFP
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