April 14, 2021
An official of the US President Joe Biden’s administration announced on Tuesday that President Biden has planned to pull out all American troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that led the United States into its lengthiest war.
Biden is expected to announce the decision today, which clearly shows that he wants to keep thousands of U.S. forces in the country even after the May 1 exit deadline that the Trump administration settled with the Taliban last year, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on Tuesday while abiding to the rules of anonymity set by the White House.
The fact that the Taliban has sworn to renew attacks on U.S. and NATO personnel if foreign troops do not stick to the deadline, and has claimed in a speech it would not carry on to take part in “any conference” about Afghanistan’s future until all “foreign forces” have departed makes it unclear whether the they will follow through with the earlier threats given Biden’s plan for a phased withdrawal between now and September. The Taliban has led sputtering talks with the Afghan government since last fall and is also invited to an additional high-level inter-Afghan discussion in Turkey later this month.
Biden’s decision came after an administration review of U.S. options in Afghanistan, where U.S. assisted peace talks have failed to proceed as hoped and the Taliban remains a strong force despite two decades of effort by the United States to overthrow the militants and form steady, democratic governance. The war has cost trillions of dollars along with the lives of more than 2,000 U.S. service members. At least 100,000 Afghan civilians have been injured or killed.
The announcement by White House representative led the Britain to announce their decision to withdraw nearly all its troops from Afghanistan following the US plan to withdraw its troops by Sept. 11, 2021, which means Britain plans to hand over the control of the academy in Kabul where troops help to train Afghan soldiers to the government.
The above reports show that September 2021 might prove to be the season of large-scale troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, which raises two questions, will the Taliban agree to the extension in troops’ withdrawal deadline which the US has requested? If not, what might be the potential consequences and solutions for the deadlock created?
© Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) and Afghan Studies Center (ASC), Islamabad.
