Pentagon hints at slowing down US pullout from Afghanistan

WASHINGTON: The US military could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan due to the gains made by the Taliban insurgents, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

Kirby stressed that President Joe Biden’s deadline of a full withdrawal by September remains in place, but added that the pace could be adjusted based on conditions.

“The situation in Afghanistan changes as the Taliban continue to conduct these attacks and to raid district centers as well as the violence, which is still too high,” he told reporters.

“If there needs to be changes made to the pace, or to the scope and scale of the retrograde, on any given day or in any given week, we want to maintain the flexibility to do that,” he said.

“We’re constantly taking a look at this, every single day: what’s the situation on the ground, what capabilities do we have, what additional resources do we need to move out of Afghanistan and at what pace.”

“All of these decisions are literally being made in real time,” he added. Pentagon officials said last week that the withdrawal, ordered by Biden in April after nearly two decades fighting Al-Qaeda and helping government forces battle the Taliban, is around half completed.

At the time of Biden’s order around 2,500 US troops and 16,000 contractors, mostly US citizens, were in the country. The Pentagon has already turned over several of its key bases to government security forces, and has removed hundreds of cargo plane-loads of equipment.

Kirby said US forces continue to support Afghan troops in fighting the Taliban. “So long as we have the capability in Afghanistan, we will continue to provide assistance to Afghan forces,” he said.

“But as the retrograde gets closer to completion, those capabilities will wane and will no longer be available.”

Taliban seize Kunduz districts

The Taliban clashed with the Afghan forces on the outskirts of Kunduz city claiming to have captured three districts in a week.

The Taliban have launched major offensives targeting government forces since early May when the US military began its final troop withdrawal, claiming to have seized more than 50 of the 421 districts.

“The Taliban fighters are at the gates of the city and they are fighting the Afghan forces,” said Amruddin Wali, a Kunduz provincial council member. He said the Taliban had also taken up positions on highways connecting Kunduz city to the neighbouring provinces.

On Monday, the Taliban claimed they had captured Imam Sahib District of the province, the third to be taken in a week.

Kunduz police spokesman Inamuddin Rahmani confirmed the fighting, and claimed his forces had killed about 50 Taliban fighters in the past 24 hours. The Taliban said they had not launched an offensive on the city of Kunduz itself.

Kunduz had been a stronghold of the Taliban before they seized power in the 1990s. The city´s location makes it a key transit point for economic and trade exchanges with Tajikistan.