Biden wants allies to leave Afghanistan at same time

The United States is putting pressure on NATO allies including Britain to get their remaining troops out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible in “lockstep” with America.

Officials in Joe Biden's administration said the Pentagon was able to get its own force — currently around 3,500 — home “well in advance” of the new Sept. 11 deadline set by the president.

But the U.S. is delaying its withdrawal so that it can leave together with allies, including 750 British troops, who are reliant on American support. A senior U.S. administration official said the White House hoped to get allies out “in the same time frame” as its own troops and in “lockstep.”

The drawdown would begin “before May 1” and Sept. 11 was an “outside date” for completing it.

“President Biden will give our military commanders the time and space they need to conduct a safe and orderly withdrawal, not just of U.S. forces but of allied forces, on the principle of `in together, out together,' ” the official said. “We will take the time we need to execute that. And no more time than that.”

The U.S. would “co-ordinate with NATO allies and partners about a drawdown of their forces in the same time frame.”

While Canada completed its own pullout in 2014, some 9,600 NATO soldiers remain in Afghanistan, about 2,500 of them members of the U.S. contingent. Canada's combat mission in the war-torn country included the deaths of 159 soldiers, the largest toll since the Korean War. More than 40,000 served in the mission that began in 2001.

A residual U.S. military presence will remain to protect its embassy, although the final configuration of forces will not be decided until an assessment of security risks at the end of the drawdown.

Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, told Gen. Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, they would “leave together.”

Blinken, speaking in Brussels, said: “We in NATO will leave Afghanistan together. Together we went into Afghanistan, now it is time to bring our forces home.” A U.S. official said: “We're committing today to going to zero.”

Britain's former defence minister, Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the defence select committee, said the U.S. decision risked “losing the peace” and allowing extremism to “regroup.” It was “concerning” and “not the right move.”

But he said British forces had “no choice” but to leave due to the U.S.'s “significant force protection capabilities from which we benefited.”

Germany, which currently has 1,000 troops in Afghanistan, has always said it could no longer maintain a presence there if the U.S. left.