DM Monitoring
KABUL: US Central Command announced that they estimate the US withdrawal from Afghanistan to be somewhere between 16% and 25% complete. President Joe Biden announced earlier that the complete withdrawal would finish by September 11, 2001. Approximately 160 C-17 loads of materiel and equipment have left Afghanistan, the US Department of Defense (DoD) reported, and more than 10,000 pieces of military equipment have been turned over to the Defense Logistics Agency.
US-controlled installations in Afghanistan are also being returned to the Afghan Defense Ministry, and so far five installations have been handed back, said the DoD. After 20 years, the US is leaving Afghanistan because the mission there is complete, said Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby during a press briefing at the Pentagon. “The president has been very clear that our troops accomplished the mission for which they were sent to Afghanistan,” Kirby said.
“That was to prevent the country from being used as a safe haven for terrorist attacks on our homeland, and there hasn’t been another attack on the homeland emanating from Afghanistan since 9/11. So the president believes the mission has been completed.”
Kirby said that the relationship with Afghan security forces will continue. The US will create a “new bilateral relationship with Afghanistan across the government: diplomatically, economically, politically and certainly from a security perspective,” Kirby said. “Our relationship with Afghan National Defense and Security Forces will continue, but it will continue in a different way.” However, US involvement in the region is not going to end entirely, according to Kirby, who said the US will be ready to meet threats by strengthening existing “over-the-horizon” capabilities there and growing new ones.
Kirby said the US already has some over-the-horizon capacity in the region with forces already stationed there and long-range capabilities that are outside the region. According to an AP report, last week Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, said negotiations with Afghanistan’s neighbors for overflight rights and troop basing are “moving forward” but will take time.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Pakistan’s chief of Army staff, Gen.
Qamar Javed Bajwa. The Pentagon didn’t get specific about what the two military leaders discussed, other than to say they talked about “shared regional interests and objectives.” “During the call, Secretary Austin reiterated his appreciation for Pakistan’s support for Afghanistan Peace Negotiations and expressed his desire to continue to build on the US – Pakistan bilateral relationship,” the Defense Department said.
