President Joe Biden plans to withdraw the remaining 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, 20 years to the day after the al Qaeda attacks that triggered America's longest war, US officials said on Tuesday, April 13.
The Democratic president will publicly announce his decision on Wednesday, the White House said. A senior Biden administration official said the pullout would begin before May 1 and could be complete well before the September 11 deadline. Significantly, it will not would be subject to further conditions, including security or human rights.
Biden's decision suggests he has concluded that the US military presence will no longer be decisive in achieving a lasting peace in Afghanistan, a core Pentagon assumption that has long underpinned American troop deployments there. It remains unclear how Biden's move would impact a planned 10-day summit starting April 24 about Afghanistan in Istanbul that is due to include the United Nations and Qatar.
It was those ties that triggered US military intervention in 2001 following al Qaeda's September 11 attacks, when hijackers slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington, killing almost 3,000 people. The Biden administration has said al Qaeda does not pose a threat to the US homeland now.Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell accused Biden of planning to"turn tail and abandon the fight in Afghanistan.
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