The Trump administration planned to complete the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan by May, in accordance with the 2020 US-Taliban peace deal. President Biden pushed back the withdrawal deadline in January, while NATO began a troop surge. The Taliban has threatened to resume attacks on coalition forces once the original deadline expires.
US President Joe Biden plans to publicly set the deadline for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan to 11 September, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, CNN, the New York Times and The Washington Post have reported, citing administration sources.
“The president has been consistent in his view that there's not a military solution to Afghanistan, that we've been there for far too long,” Psaki said, speaking to reporters in Washington.
The new deadline is well over four months beyond the original 1 May withdrawal deadline agreed by the Trump administration with the signing of the peace agreement with the Taliban in Doha in February 2020.
Trump reduced troop numbers in Afghanistan from 14,000 to 2,500 apiece by the time he left office in January 2021, (although it has subsequently been reported that as many as 1,000 more troops were not included in the latter calculation). Biden froze the withdrawal, leading to fears of a further destabilisation of the situation in the Central Asian nation after the 1 May deadline passes.
Also last month, the State…
