Joe Biden decided that US troops would stay in Afghanistan beyond the May 1 deadline set in an agreement with the Taliban, but would leave “unconditionally” by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the 2001 attacks. in the United States, an American official said on Tuesday.
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“We will begin an orderly withdrawal of the remaining forces before May 1 and plan to have all US troops out of the country before the 20th anniversary of 9/11,” he told reporters, assuring that this departure would be “coordinated” and simultaneous with that of other NATO forces.
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“We have told the Taliban, without any ambiguity, that we will respond forcefully to any attack on US soldiers while we make an orderly and safe withdrawal,” he added.
The United States intervened in Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks on the New York Twin Towers and the Pentagon. They quickly ousted the Taliban from power in Kabul, accused of having hosted the jihadist group Al-Qaeda responsible for the attacks and its leader Osama bin Laden, but then got bogged down.
To end the longest war in American history, the previous government of Donald Trump reached an agreement with the Taliban in February 2019.
It provided for the withdrawal of all American and foreign forces before May 1, on condition that the insurgents in the future prevent any terrorist group from operating from the Afghan territories they control.
The Pentagon recently expressed doubts about honoring this commitment.
The Taliban were also due to enter into unprecedented direct peace negotiations with the government in Kabul. These talks, which opened in September, have since stalled and must be relaunched from September 24 at a peace conference in Turkey.
The US official warned Tuesday that the withdrawal decided by Joe Biden, who is to speak Wednesday on this sensitive issue, would be “unconditional”.
“The president felt that a conditional approach, as has been the case for the past two decades, was the recipe for staying in Afghanistan for life,” he explained.