US forces will complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, 15 years after the September 11 attacks, said U.S President Barack Obama yesterday.
The United States invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime in Kabul and to hunt its ally Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, author of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
The Taliban crumbled quickly in the face of an all out US-backed rebel offensive, but later regrouped to launch a bitter insurgency and draw the United States into its longest war ever.
The insurgents are still far from defeated, but Washington now wants to withdraw its troops from the battlefield and effectively end a seemingly endless war”.
We will only sustain a military presence after 2014 if the Afghan government signs the Bilateral Security Agreement,” a senior administration official said ahead of Obama´s announcement.
“Assuming a BSA is signed, at the beginning of 2015, we will have 9,800 US service members in different parts of the country, together with our NATO allies and other partners,” the official continued.
“By the end of 2015, we would reduce that presence by roughly half, consolidating US troops in Kabul and on Bagram Airfield.
“And one year later, by the end of 2016, we will draw down to a normal embassy presence with a security assistance office in Kabul, as we have done in Iraq.”
