Troop withdrawals
The nearly 12 months since the chaotic end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan haven’t been easy for Joe Biden.
Mali’s junta has told Denmark to withdraw its soldiers from northern Mali, saying permission had not been given for them to deploy there.
Senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Muttaqi is said to be in the Afghan capital negotiating with Kabul’s political leadership, including Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council, and former President Hamid Karzai.
The Taliban have captured a large, heavily defended city in northern Afghanistan in a major setback for the government.
Local police say Taliban fighters have taken control of a key district in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province and encircled the provincial capital.
The Afghan government’s chief peace envoy has expressed fears that the Taliban will have no interest in a political settlement with the U.S.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is telling Congress that the U.S. military has already begun conducting combat operations and surveillance in Afghanistan from outside the country’s borders, as the troop withdrawal continues.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has told Congress that America’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is “slightly” ahead of schedule, but he’s providing no details.
When he pulled the plug on the U.S. war in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said that the reasons for staying, 10 years after the death of Osama bin Laden, had become “increasingly unclear.”
U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders of NATO member countries plan to discuss tense ties with Russia and China, the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the future of the 30-nation military alliance at a summit in Belgium on June 14.
There are growing concerns about one American who risks being left behind as the U.S. moves to withdraw its military from Afghanistan.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Thursday to sell Afghan leaders and a wary public on President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all American troops from the country and end America’s longest war.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Biden administration’s surprise announcement of an unconditional troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 appears to strip the Taliban and the Afghan government of considerable leverage and could ramp up pressure on them to reach a peace deal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday did not rule out the possibility of U.S. troops staying in Afghanistan through the end of the year, and one of his top generals told Congress that Afghanistan’s military forces need American assistance to successfully counter the Taliban.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in his first news conference as Pentagon chief, said Friday that progress toward peace in Afghanistan and an end to U.S. military involvement there depends on the Taliban reducing attacks.
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday urged the Afghan government and the Taliban to step up the pace of peace talks amid doubts over whether the military alliance will pull thousands of troops out of the country by a May deadline.
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that the military alliance will only leave Afghanistan when security conditions allow, as a deadline for withdrawing troops set out in a peace deal with the Taliban nears.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The U.S. military says its troop withdrawal from Somalia is complete, in one of the last actions of President Donald Trump’s presidency.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Pentagon pulls troops out of the Middle East in the coming weeks, under orders from President Donald Trump, U.S. military leaders are working to find other ways to deter potential attacks by Iran and its proxies, and to counter arguments that America is abandoning the region
WASHINGTON (AP) — The coming period of U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq is “fraught with risk,” but the military will not hesitate to strike back if extremists attempt to undermine the transition to a smaller U.S. force in those countries, the newly installed acting secretary of defe
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s foreign minister Wednesday condemned a rocket attack in the capital a day earlier, calling it a “terrorist act,” and said combat operations by the U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said Tuesday the U.S. will reduce troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan by mid-January, asserting that the decision fulfills President Donald Trump’s pledge to bring forces home from America’s long wars even as Republicans and U.S. allies
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is urging the Trump administration to carefully reconsider any decision to hastily withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s national security adviser on Friday doubled down on his assertion that the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will shrink to 2,500 early next year, while suggesting that Trump’s tweet that all forces should be home by Christmas was more a wish than a real
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military was blindsided Thursday by President Donald Trump’s assertion that all U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of the year, with U.S. officials saying they are not aware of such a plan and have gotten no actual order to accelerate the more gradual pullou
BERLIN (AP) — The leader of Germany’s biggest far-right party has welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw thousands of American troops from the European Union country.
BERLIN (AP) — The governors of the four German states that are home to critical U.S. military facilities are urging members of U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Taliban have not yet met conditions required for a complete U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by next May as envisioned in a U.S.
BERLIN (AP) — Two conservative German lawmakers have criticized the reported U.S. decision to withdraw more than a quarter of American troops stationed in Germany.
WASHINGTON (AP) — American troops have begun leaving Afghanistan for the initial troop withdrawal required in the U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Warning that it will be a “long, windy, bumpy road” to peace in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday he has approved the start of an American troop withdrawal even as the Taliban said it would continue attacks against Afghan forces.