Sunday 15th August 2021
5000 US soldiers as rearguard
Biden threatens Taliban with “military reaction”
By the end of the month, the US wanted to end its combat mission in Afghanistan. Because of the advancing Taliban, the withdrawal fled. 5000 US soldiers are supposed to secure the evacuations.
Given the rapid advance of the radical Islamic Taliban militia on Kabul, US President Joe Biden has increased the number of US soldiers who are supposed to help evacuate the embassy in the Afghan capital. Instead of the forecast of 3,000 soldiers, “around 5,000 soldiers” should now be deployed to secure the departure of the embassy staff and countless local civilian workers, Biden explained after consulting his national security advisers.
Biden again defended his decision to withdraw the US military from Afghanistan after 20 years. “Another year or five more years of US military presence would have made no difference if the Afghan military cannot or does not want to hold its own country.” He was the fourth US president to be responsible for this troop presence, he said. “I’m not going to pass this war on to a fifth president.”
Since the start of the withdrawal of US and NATO troops in May, the Islamist Taliban have recorded enormous territorial gains and have now also taken the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north. The US military wanted to leave Afghanistan by the end of August.
Biden threatened the Taliban with “a swift and strong military response” if they endangered US personnel in Afghanistan. That he had told representatives of the Taliban in Doha, Qatar. This applies to “every action by the Taliban on the ground in Afghanistan that endangers US personnel or our mission there”. At the same time, the US president instructed the armed forces and intelligence services “to ensure that we maintain the ability and vigilance to face future terrorist threats from Afghanistan.”
Regarding the evacuation of Afghan workers who helped US troops during the operation, Biden said, “We are working to evacuate thousands of people who have supported our cause and their families.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the phone. They had discussed the urgency of the ongoing diplomatic and political efforts to contain the violence, said the US State Department. Blinken emphasized the “continued support for the Afghan people”.
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