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 Sept. 11, 2001, as was reported by the Washington Post.
According to the news agency, the decision, which Biden is expected to announce on 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.
Officially, the White House refused to comment on plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
However, a source familiar with the situation says the United States sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001 with a certain purpose.
“We went to Afghanistan to deliver justice to those who attacked us on September 11th. . . . We believe we achieved that objective some years ago,” the senior official said, and now judge the threat to the United States “to be at a level that we can address it without a persistent military footprint,” the source stated. Thus, the U.S. achieved its goal years ago.
Officially, there are 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, although the number fluctuates and is currently about 1,000 more than that. There are also up to an additional 7,000 foreign forces in the coalition, with the majority of them being NATO troops.
The war in Afghanistanhas cost trillions of dollars in addition to the lives of more than 2,000 U.S. service members. At least 100,000 Afghan civilians have been injured or killed.