All US troops in Afghanistan to withdraw by Christmas, Trump tweets

WASHINGTON, 08 Oct. - (ANA) - All U.S. troops currently serving in Afghanistan will return to the United States by Christmas, President Donald Trump said in a shocking tweet Wednesday night just hours after his national security advisor said that the United States would draw down its forces in Afghanistan to 2,500 by early next year.

Trump and other officials previously have said that the number of United States troops in Afghanistan would be down to between 4,000 and 5,000 troops around November, and that any subsequent withdrawal would be conditions-based.

But Trump has made it clear that he wants the United States out of Afghanistan, rarely speaking publicly about what “conditions” would be necessary to carry out that withdrawal and instead emphasizing the length of the conflict and complaining that U.S. soldiers are acting as “police” in the war torn country. Former and current administration officials have described him as eager to pull out by November in order to fulfill a key campaign promise from the 2016 election.

It was not immediately clear on Wednesday evening whether he had issued an order to zero out U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of the year. Notably, there have been no following statements or comments from U.S. officials at the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., or in Kabul. Typically, major changes to U.S. force levels or strategy in Afghanistan have been announced with coordinated public messages by administration and military leaders. Earlier in the day, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said that there are currently fewer than 5,000 troops in Afghanistan, and that the United States planned to draw down to 2,500 by early 2021.

Over the past six months, the United States reduced the number of its troops in Afghanistan first to about 8,600, in accordance with a deal brokered with the Taliban and signed in February. That deal envisioned the immediate drawdown from 14,000 to 8,600 troops by the summer, and a complete U.S. withdrawal within 14 months, if the Taliban lived up to their end of it.  - (ANA) -

AB/ANA/08 October 2020 - - -