Pentagon wants to delay troop withdrawal from Afghanistan – media sources

Almaty. May 19. Silkroadnews – The US troops can be withdrawn from Afghanistan when the conditions allow, this is an opinion by the US commanders, TASS reports with reference to The Washington Post.

It is reported that on May 18 in Brussels the commander of US forces in Afghanistan Lt. Gen. John Nicholson held a meeting with senior officers, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Curtis Scaparrotti.

“We must understand that our goal is a stable and secure Afghanistan which is no longer a haven for terrorists. I think this is what I take away from General Nicholson’s report, and I thinks it’s important that the [military chiefs] also heard it today,” C. Scaparrotti said, though declined to go into details on the meeting’s discussion.

At the end of 2014 the United States and other NATO countries have announced the completion of their troops mission in Afghanistan and handed over the control of the situation in the country to the national army and security forces. Since then American soldiers and officers do not take part in military operations against the militants of “Taliban” movement. The task of Americans is to assist in training and equipping the Afghan armed forces and render support for counter-terrorist operations against the remnants of “al-Qaeda” group and its supporters.

Initially the US president Barack Obama hoped to withdraw nearly all the US troops by the beginning of 2017, though later he revised the plans as the situation in Afghanistan still remains unstable. In October he announced a decision to slow down the withdrawal of troops from the country to keep there a force of about 9800 troops deployed through most of 2016, with 5500 in 2017 to be located in Kabul, as well as at three bases in other parts of Afghanistan.