Tag: Afghanistan

Biden says U.S. has accomplished its primary objectives in Afghanistan as he defends troop withdrawal amid Taliban gains

Washington Post logo

President Biden said Thursday that the country had accomplished its objectives in Afghanistan of killing Osama bin Laden and undercutting al-Qaeda’s ability to launch more attacks on the United States as he defended his decision to bring a 20-year war to an end.

Biden, during a White House speech, was defiant in the face of gains by the Taliban since he announced a planned U.S. troop withdrawal in April and said the Afghan people needed to dictate their own future.

“We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,” Biden said. Continue reading.

Trump muddles Republican messaging on Afghanistan

The Hill logo

Donald Trump’s hearty endorsement of pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by September has undercut efforts by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and other key Republicans to question President Biden’s strategy. 

More broadly, the former president has focused the nation’s attention on China as the United States’s premier national security concern, putting pressure on Senate Republicans to support legislation Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to move to respond to Beijing’s growing influence and power. 

McConnell is the most powerful Republican leader in Washington, but he doesn’t have the same unrivaled platform that he did when he was in the same position — head of the minority opposition in Washington — at the start of former President Obama’s tenure.  Continue reading.

US troops begin leaving Afghanistan

The Hill logo

The U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan has officially begun in line with President Biden’s order for all U.S. troops to be out by Sept. 11, the White House confirmed Thursday.

“A drawdown is underway,” deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling on Air Force One.

Biden ordered the withdrawal earlier this month, intent on bringing to a close America’s longest war by the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that sparked the conflict. Continue reading.

Biden will withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021

Washington Post logo

President Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, U.S. officials said, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that drew the United States into its longest war.

The decision, which Biden is expected to announce Wednesday, will keep thousands of U.S. forces in the country beyond the May 1 exit deadline that the Trump administration negotiated last year with the Taliban, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Tuesday under rules of anonymity set by the White House.

While the Taliban has promised to renew attacks on U.S. and NATO personnel if foreign troops are not out by the deadline — and said in a statement it would not continue to participate in “any conference” about Afghanistan’s future until all “foreign forces” have departed — it is not clear whether the militants will follow through with the earlier threats given Biden’s plan for a phased withdrawal between now and September. The Taliban has conducted sputtering talks with the Afghan government, begun under the Trump deal, since last fall. It was also invited to an additional high-level inter-Afghan discussion in Turkey later this month. Continue reading.

Defense secretary sent classified memo to White House about Afghanistan before Trump fired him

Washington Post logo

In the run-up to the election, President Trump’s tweet saying that all U.S. troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” raised alarm among senior U.S. officials who had been working on a more gradual withdrawal.

The existing plan, tied to precarious negotiations with the Taliban insurgent group to sign a peace deal with the Afghan government, had not yielded the progress that American officials wanted. While the Pentagon was on its way to reducing the number of troops to fewer than 5,000 this month, negotiations appeared to stall and the Taliban continued to launch attacks across the country.

After consulting with senior military officers, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper sent a classified memo to the White House this month expressing concerns about additional cuts, according to two senior U.S. officials familiar with the discussion. Conditions on the ground were not yet right, Esper wrote, citing the ongoing violence, possible dangers to the remaining troops in the event of a rapid pullout, potential damage to alliances and apprehension about undercutting the negotiations. Continue reading.

Russian bounties to Taliban-linked militants resulted in deaths of U.S. troops, according to intelligence assessments

Washington Post logoRussian bounties offered to Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan are believed to have resulted in the deaths of several U.S. service members, according to intelligence gleaned from U.S. military interrogations of captured militants in recent months.

Several people familiar with the matter said it was unclear exactly how many Americans or coalition troops from other countries may have been killed or targeted under the program. U.S. forces in Afghanistan suffered a total of 10 deaths from hostile gunfire or improvised bombs in 2018, and 16 in 2019. Two have been killed this year. In each of those years, several service members were also killed by what are known as “green on blue” hostile incidents by members of Afghan security forces, which are sometimes believed to have been infiltrated by the Taliban.

The intelligence was passed up from the U.S. Special Operations forces based in Afghanistan and led to a restricted high-level White House meeting in late March, the people said.

Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says

New York Times logoThe Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment.

WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion. Continue reading.

Trump’s Taliban deal and the weight of history

Washington Post logoA few weeks ago, Afghanistan marked the 31st anniversary of the last Soviet soldier leaving the country. Over the weekend, the Trump administration heralded the beginning of the end of the United States’ near two-decade-long military presence in the country. The development came after the United States agreed to a truce with the Taliban, a timetable for future talks between Afghanistan’s warring parties and a tentative plan for pulling out U.S. troops. Afghans and Americans can only hope that the aftermath of these negotiations won’t lead to the same instability and state collapse that ultimately followed the Soviet withdrawal decades ago.

The legacy of the Soviet intervention has always hovered over America’s own “forever” war in Afghanistan, even as top U.S. officials waved away the analogy. Key Taliban officials involved in the talks, including deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, fought on the side of the U.S.-backed mujahideen in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation. Now, they are preparing once more for a foreign power’s departure.

Over the course of the next five months, the United States may draw down its troop levels in Afghanistan to roughly where they were by the end of the Obama administration. A complete withdrawal could follow within 14 months, U.S. officials indicated. All of this remains contingent on security guarantees from the Taliban that Afghan soil will not be used by terrorists with aims to attack the United States or its allies, as my colleagues reported.

US, Taliban sign deal to withdraw troops from Afghanistan

The Hill logoThe United States and the Taliban signed a historic deal Saturday aimed at winding down America’s longest war.

With Secretary of State Mike Pompeo watching, U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban’s political chief, Abdul Ghani Baradar, signed a deal in Doha, Qatar, to begin the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

In exchange, the Taliban is assuring it will not allow Afghanistan to be used by terrorists to attack the United States. Continue reading.

U.S. reportedly reaches Afghanistan truce with Taliban

Axios logoThe U.S. reached an initial deal with the Taliban on Friday that could begin a drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan, AP reports, citing a senior U.S. official.

The big picture: Top administration officials, including President Trump, had signaled that an agreement could be reached soon, allowing America’s 18-year war in Afghanistan to end after thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent. But previous attempts to leave Afghanistan have not panned out.

What we know: The “very specific” deal calls for a seven-day “reduction of violence” covering the entire country, to act as the precursor to all-Afghan peace talks within 10 days, a U.S. official said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

  • Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Thursday that the U.S. and Taliban had “negotiated a proposal for a seven-day reduction in violence.”
  • The full conditions remain unclear. If the administration deems they’ve been met, it would then withdraw some troops and the Taliban would enter negotiations with the Afghan government about the country’s political future.
  • A U.S. exit likely wouldn’t mean an end to the fighting. The Taliban have been unwilling to lay down their arms, rebuffing calls for a ceasefire during negotiations. Continue reading.