U.S. to cut troops
in Afghanistan
The New York Times
President Donald Trump said that there would be fewer than 5,000 American troops in Afghanistan by Election Day in November, signaling that the United States would continue to withdraw troops from the country despite limited progress toward the start of peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
"We're going down to 4,000, we're negotiating right now," Trump said in an interview with Axios that was filmed on July 28 and released in full Monday night.
The president's statement seems to undercut U.S. diplomats' repeated assertions that any further troop reductions in Afghanistan would be based on the Taliban's commitment to the Feb. 29 peace agreement signed with the United States. After the signing, the U.S. military is supposed to completely withdraw from Afghanistan in 14 months, a move that senior military officials have called "aspirational."
As part of the February agreement, the U.S. military cut its numbers in Afghanistan from 12,000 to about 8,600 and closed several bases. Negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban were supposed to start months ago but have been held up over a prisoner exchange between the two sides.
Trump's drive to pull U.S. forces from war zones, especially Afghanistan, has often put the White House at loggerheads with the State Department, as U.S. negotiators and military officials have tried to keep an already shaky peace process on track.
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The Taliban continues to attack Afghan troops, and the U.S. military has bombed the insurgent group dozens of times in their defense since the agreement. The U.S.-led mission has refused to publicly acknowledge the strikes. The Taliban have agreed not to attack U.S. and NATO coalition forces, but Afghan forces continue to be targeted despite hopes that there would be a reduction in violence after the deal.
This summer, the Pentagon prepared several options for further troop reductions.
The president's decision to move from 8,600 to about 5,000 troops was the Pentagon's preferred option of those proposed, defense officials said. The effect of the coronavirus pandemic has already greatly restricted U.S. military operations in the country, making some troops already deployed there next to useless because many of their roles require in-person training with Afghan forces.