US exit from Afghanistan remains shrouded in mystery

The Pentagon has announced that US troops exit from Afghanistan is still unclear despite the US-Taliban agreement for the withdrawal of American forces from the country US President Joe Biden has said it is time for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

However, the Pentagon spokesman said on Friday that the US will likely increase the presence of its troops in Afghanistan temporarily over the coming weeks and months to fulfill Biden’s order to safely withdraw all forces from the country by Sept. 11.

US Department of Defense spokesman John F. Kirby said the US military leadership was still working out the details of the agreed drawdown with the Taliban. 

Kirby noted the draw down in Afghanistan will be “scoped and tailored to the situation.”

“It’s a landlocked country, and there is clearly the potential for resistance here, opposition, as we begin to draw down,” Kirby said. “It’s not out of the realm of the possibility that some temporary enabling functions may have to be introduced into the region to permit this to be as safe and as orderly as possible. That would be the right thing to do. The prudent thing to do. It would irresponsible if we weren't thinking about that.”

In the meantime, increasing concerns from former and incumbent US officials and lawmakers have cast doubt on the Biden administration's determination to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan.

Former US national security adviser HR McMaster said the US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan as the Taliban continues its attacks on Afghan civilians and security forces is a moral travesty and a strategic disaster.

“We are abandoning courageous Afghans on a modern-day frontier between barbarism and civilization,” he said in a tweet on Friday.

Reacting to the decision, Britain’s Army chief General Sir Nick Carter has said it was “not a decision we hoped for” but added that the UK respected the stance taken by the new administration.

US Senator Lindsey Graham has claim the decision will favor al-Qaeda and Daesh in Afghanistan.

“The government will deteriorate rapidly. People will go back to their corners. The Taliban will gain strength in the south and the central government in Kabul will lose its ability to effectively manage the country,” Graham said. “It’s tenuous already that the Haqqani network, a terrorist organization named by our State Department to be a terrorist organization, will reign in the east. The northern alliance who were the mortal enemy to the Taliban will reconstitute and form militias in the north. In the west Herat which on the border of Iran and a major city in Afghanistan and then the Iranians will have a major influence.”

Despite the shrouded mystery surrounding the US pullout, NATO announced it would also follow the same timetable for withdrawing its more than 7,000 allied forces from Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Taliban accused the US of breaching its agreement with the group for the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.

Mohammed Naeem Wardak, spokesman for the Taliban's political office in Doha, told Press TV in an exclusive interview on Thursday that Washington had failed to abide by its commitments and respect pledges under the 2020 peace deal with the group.

"The US shamefully breached‎ the agreement on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Americans have failed to adhere to their commitments," he said.

Wardak said the group’s priority is now to forcibly expel the US forces from Afghanistan.

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