(Source : U.S. News & World Report – Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali) – Trump May Settle for Partial Afghan Withdrawal, Despite Pentagon Shakeup
President Donald Trump’s new Pentagon leadership team has not yet signalled an imminent, total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, raising expectations among allies that Trump might settle for only a partial reduction this year, sources said.
Trump fired his defense secretary, Mark Esper, and appointed other top Pentagon officials last week after longstanding concerns that his priorities were not being dealt with urgently enough at the Defense Department.
They included ending the 19-year-old Afghan engagement by Christmas, an ambitious target that opponents of the country’s longest war welcomed but which Trump’s critics warned could be reckless given ongoing militant violence plaguing Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has featured in a flurry of introductory calls by acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, Esper’s replacement, to U.S. allies’ defense ministers and chiefs of defense, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters.
“It was a part of many of them because it is of great importance to our NATO allies, our allies in the region and also just global security and protecting the American homeland,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But the official, speaking after the calls with allies, suggested that Trump would not push a withdrawal faster than conditions on the ground allow.
U.S. and Afghan officials are warning of troubling levels of violence by Taliban insurgents and persistent Taliban links to al Qaeda. (…)
One NATO official, who asked not to be named, said the belief was the United States could soon announce a drawdown to 2,500 to 3,000 troops by Christmas. (…)
Read full Article >>> https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-11-16/trump-may-settle-for-partial-afghan-withdrawal-despite-pentagon-shakeup-sources
Photo © Omar Sobhani, Reuters, 2017, as published in ibid
