US may send more troops to help Afghanistan withdrawal
The US will be likely to increase its troop presence in Afghanistan temporarily in the coming months to fulfil President Joe Biden’s order to withdraw all personnel by September 11, the Pentagon said.
Department of Defence chief spokesman John Kirby said details were still to be worked out, but that it was “logical to assume that you may need some logistics help, maybe some engineering help, you may have to add some force protection capabilities – again temporarily – just to make sure that the drawdown goes in a safe, orderly and effective way”.
On Wednesday, Mr Biden announced that the US would pull all of its more than 2,500 troops out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the US that had triggered the invasion of Afghanistan.
Nato announced that it would follow the same timetable for withdrawing more than 7,000 personnel.
The president’s decision defies a May 1 withdrawal deadline that was agreed to by president Donald Trump’s administration as part of a peace agreement with the Taliban.
Instead, Mr Biden said that the US withdrawal would begin on May 1.
Speaking at a Pentagon press conference on Friday, Mr Kirby had few details on the pace and timing of the withdrawal.
He said it was not clear how many troops would be out of the country by May 1 as a signal to the Taliban that the US was abiding by its new plan to begin leaving.
The Taliban said that it will retaliate if the US does not abide by the agreement made with the Trump administration. And those threats were a key concern for the Pentagon as it tries to safely move troops and what is likely to be millions of dollars in equipment out of the country.
Mr Biden, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and others have made it clear that the US is keenly aware of the Taliban threats, and that any attacks on US or allied personnel or bases would face strong US reaction.
Mr Kirby said it was also not clear if any US military contractors will remain in the country.
He said that the goal was to get all defence department personnel out, and “I suspect that contractors will be part of that”.
But he added that it was not clear if there will be a reason to keep some type of contractor support in the country.
According to the Pentagon, the number of contractors in Afghanistan started to decline over the past year or so.
According to the latest numbers, there are close to 17,000 defence department-funded contractors in Afghanistan and less than a third of those were Americans.
The total included more than 2,800 armed and unarmed private security contractors, of which more than 1,500 are armed. Of those 1,500, about 600 are Americans.
Defence department contractors conduct a wide variety of tasks from protecting convoys and serving as security escorts to training, engineering and maintenance duties.