KABUL (SW) – Analysts warned on Tuesday a haphazard withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan would leave a security vacuum paving way for a civil war.
This comes after the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said President Donald Trump wants combat forces reduced in Afghanistan by the next U.S. presidential election. "That's my directive from the president of the United States," Pompeo told The Economic Club of Washington D.C. when asked whether he expects the United States to reduce troops in Afghanistan before the next election in November 2020.
"He's been unambiguous: end the endless wars, draw down, and reduce. It won't just be us," he said, referring to Trump's directive. "We hope that overall the need for combat forces in the region is reduced."
Security analyst Kabul Khan Tadbeer said foreign meddling has been underway since past 40 years, and many warlords with huge cache of arms and ammunition remain in power, which can result in a civil war if the U.S. forces withdraw in a haphazard manner. He said under such circumstances the withdrawal of U.S. troops and leaving Afghanistan on the mercy of regional powers are against the wishes of the Afghans.
In this while, President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman, Sedeq Sedeqi tweeted that on Friday, Pompeo and Ghani agreed in a telephone call to "accelerate efforts" to end the war, and that the United States remained committed to a "conditions-based" drawdown of troops. Pompeo said he was optimistic about the negotiations with the Taliban to end the nearly 18-year-old war.
More than 20,000 U.S. and other NATO coalition troops are in Afghanistan as part of a mission to train, assist and advise Afghan forces, which remain heavily dependent on U.S. air support, and to carry out counterterrorism operations, Reuters reported.
However, another analyst Abdul Ghafar Gardezi argued that President Trump’s rush for withdrawal from Afghanistan is solely aimed at domestic politics in the U.S. He added the U.S. has invested heavily in Afghanistan in the past 18 years, and a haphazard withdrawal would pose serious risk to those investments. He added without a nationwide disarmament campaign, a deal with the Taliban would only cause more violence.
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