Biden says ‘time to end’ US war in Afghanistan with total pullout

Joe Biden announces unconditional withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan; senior Republicans claim it will sow seeds of longer conflict.

US President Joe Biden speaks from the Treaty Room in the White House about the withdrawal of the remainder of US troops from Afghanistan. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden will withdraw remaining US troops from Afghanistan, with the US President declaring the war following the September 11 terrorist attacks was “never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking”.

Mr Biden announced the end of longest-running war for the US on Thursday morning, Australian time, after two decades and 2400 US military and tens of thousands of Afghan deaths.

“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for withdrawal, and expecting a different result,” Mr Biden said, adding there was no longer any justification to believe a longer presence would create a stable democracy in the Central Asian republic.

Troops on the ground will begin a gradual withdrawal on May 1 with the process to be complete by September 11, although some military officials expect the exit could be more rapid.

But Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has insisted, in a call with Mr Biden, that Afghanistan’s security forces were “fully capable” of controlling unrest in the country.

Mr Biden said Washington would continue to provide support, but ruled out any further military assistance.

Mr Biden had earlier considered stationing a residual US force to strike at al-Qa’ida or other international jihadist groups in Afghanistan or making withdrawal contingent on progress on the ground or in slow-moving peace talks.

In the end, all conditions were dropped and only guards for installations like the US embassy in Kabul will stay.

German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said NATO would likely join the US in withdrawing its troops by September. In a statement, NATO said: “Recognising that there is no military solution to the challenges Afghanistan faces, allies have determined that we will start the withdrawal (by May 1)”.

Illustration: Johannes Leak

The Times of London separately reported that Britain would withdraw its roughly 750 troops citing sources who said “they would struggle without American support because of a reliance on US bases and infrastructure”.

But Mr Biden’s decision to withdraw all remaining troops has dealt a significant blow to the peace process in Afghanistan, with the Taliban ruling out attending a US-backed peace summit in Istanbul next week.

The Taliban, who enforced a severe brand of Sunni Islam and banned women from most of daily life during their rule, have said they would not negotiate for peace until all foreign military personnel are withdrawn from the country.

The Afghan National Security Forces “have been defending our people with high moral (for the) past two years and have recently conducted close to 98 per cent of operations independently,” Waheed Omer, the director general of Afghanistan’s Office of Public and Strategic Affairs, said.

“They are fully capable of doing that in the future.”

But Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns has previously told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that there was a “significant risk” that al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan would seek to rebuild their strength after the withdrawal of foreign troops.

“When the time comes for the US military to withdraw, the US government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish,” Mr Burns said at the time.

A decade ago, the US had about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. That figure fell to about 3500 by the end of the Trump administration, while research conducted by Brown University in Rhode Island has put the cost of the war to the US at around $US2trillion.

Donald Trump had also campaigned to remove troops from Afghanistan and in December vetoed a major defence bill partly because it would have stopped his move to reduce numbers from 4500 in November to 2500 in January.

“I’m now the fourth United States president to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan,” Mr Biden said as he announced the withdrawal.