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WASHINGTON: The US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is proceeding steadily toward President Joe Biden’s September deadline with as much as 12 percent of the work completed, the Pentagon’s regional Central Command said.
As of Monday, the United States had “retrograded” the equivalent of enough gear to fill 104 C-17 Globemasters, the military’s massive transport, Centcom said in a statement using the Pentagon’s term for the pullout.
They had also turned over more than 1,800 pieces of equipment to a separate logistics agency from destruction. US forces have also turned over one of the bases, Camp Antonik in Helmand Province, to Afghan forces. Centcom estimated that it had completed between six and 12 percent of the retrograde process.
The US military is declining to be precise about the speed of the withdrawal and likely final date in order to “preserve operational security.”
In April President Joe Biden ordered the military to withdraw its last 2,500 troops and some 16,000 civilian contractors who support coalition operations from the country by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States which led to the US invasion of Afghanistan.
The administration of former President Donald Trump originally pledged to be out of the war-torn country by May 1, but Biden pushed the date back.
Fighting has been soaring across the country amid the ongoing withdrawal of U.S. and international forces from Afghanistan by September 11.
The pullout will be a major test for Afghan security forces, with U.S. generals and other officials expressing concerns in recent weeks that it might lead to the collapse of the Afghan government in the absence of progress on stalled peace talks with the Taliban.
Intra-Afghan peace efforts have stalled since the Western-backed government in Kabul and the Taliban began talks in Qatar last year.
