US soldiers in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — President Donald Trump said that US troop levels in Afghanistan will drop to 8,600 if a peace deal
is reached with the Taliban and that a permanent presence will remain.
“We’re going down to 8,600 and then we make a determination from there,”
Trump said in an interview with Fox News radio. “We’re always going to have a presence.”
Trump also said that if an attack on the United States originated from
Afghanistan “we would come back with a force like… never before.”
But he added: “I don’t see that happening.”
US troops were first sent to Afghanistan after the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on US soil carried out by Al-Qaeda, which was sheltered by the former Taliban regime.
Washington now wants to end its military involvement and has been talking to the Taliban since at least 2018. Trump says that troops will only be reduced when the Taliban gives a guarantee that its territory will not be used by Al-Qaeda or other international militant groups.
Trump underlined that there was to be no complete withdrawal, keeping a force that would provide “high intelligence.”
Trump’s comment came as a U.S. envoy continued talks with the Taliban to try to find a resolution to the nearly 18-year war. The president said the U.S. was “getting close” to making a deal, but that the outcome was uncertain.
Trump did not offer a timeline for withdrawing troops. The Pentagon has been developing plans to withdraw as many as half of the 14,000 U.S. troops still there, but the Taliban want all U.S. and NATO forces withdrawn.
“We’re going down to 8,600 and then we’ll make a determination from there,” Trump said, adding that the U.S. would have a “high intelligence” presence in Afghanistan going forward.
Trump has called Afghanistan — where the Taliban harbored members of the al-Qaida network responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States — the `”Harvard University of terror.”
Afghanistan’s government expects that U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad will soon update officials in Kabul on the progress of peace talks with the Taliban.
But even as the talks go on, there are persistent attacks by the Taliban across Afghanistan, and an affiliate of the Daesh group has taken hold in the country and has been expanding its base.
Even if Khalilzad is able to close a deal, it will remain for the Afghan government to negotiate its own peace agreement with the Taliban. Part of those talks will be determining a role for the Taliban in governing a country that it ruled before U.S. forces invaded in October 2001. — NNN-AGENCIES
