KABUL: The US has closed at least 10 bases across Afghanistan since thesigning of a deal with the Taliban in February, Afghan and US officialstold the Washington Post.
CNN reported the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is being moved back into thePersian Gulf region along with other warships to provide combat support andair cover as US troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan by January 15under President Trump’s orders, according to a defense official. TheWashington Post report said that the base closures are part of the completewithdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan outlined in the US-Taliban deal.
An Afghan official and a US official on condition of anonymity confirmed tothe Washington Post the closure of the bases, several of which werepreviously unreported. Little is known about what remains of those bases,the report said, adding that many were in Afghanistan’s most volatileprovinces where US support for Afghan operations has been critical inpushing back the Taliban. Some had been completely handed over to Afghansecurity forces, the report said.
Others may have been vacated and left in place in a way in which they couldbe occupied again in the future if US and Afghan officials consider itnecessary, it added. It is also unclear how much equipment — more difficultto move than people — is left at each of the closed installations. USSecretary of State Mike Pompeo defended President Trump’s plan to reducethe number of troops in Afghanistan to 2,500 by mid-January, saying thatgetting American troops out of “harm’s way” in Afghanistan “is the missionset.”
Quoted in a report by Fox News, Pompeo said no troops in the country wouldnot mean no security for Americans. “President Trump has been very clearwe’re going to protect and secure the homeland, but we’re not going to haveour young men and women in harm’s way when it doesn’t deliver real securitybenefits for the United States and for our allies,” Pompeo as quoted by FoxNews.
Read Top Stories
“The president to date has said that we’re going to go from where we aretoday, something just over 4,000, to around 2,500” troops, Pompeo said asquoted by Fox News. “The threat from terrorism around the world — fromIslamic extremism, Islamic terrorism — is real. It doesn’t just emanatefrom Afghanistan,” Pompeo said as quoted by Fox News.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg this week said that an early andhasty withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan might endanger the gains “wehave made, and that’s a risky project.” He said the US’s position on thewithdrawal is clear as the United States is going to reduce its presence inAfghanistan from roughly 4,500 to around 2,500 troops. Violence remainshigh in Afghanistan despite efforts for peace. Last week, the DefenseMinistry reported clashes in more than 20 provinces. (Tolo News)
