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US Officially Starts Afghanistan Troop Pullout

The United States Officially Starts Afghanistan Troop Pullout

United States Officially Starts Afghanistan Troop Pullout

According to military and White House officials, the United States and The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officially started pulling out their last troops from Afghanistan on Saturday. The move brings America’s longest war closer to an end. Joe Biden, the President of the United States, set 1st May as the official date on which the remaining troops would start withdrawing, even though the U.S. military has been pulling equipment out of the country in the last few weeks.

There are between twenty-five hundred to thirty-five hundred American troops, and almost seven thousand NATO troops remaining in Afghanistan, the last of them will leave by the summer end. On the other side, Afghan security forces are on high alert for possible terror attacks on the troops by a bolstered Taliban as they complete the removal, steering in a new era of ambiguity in the country. NATO and the United States allies entered the South Asian nation on 7th October 2001 to find al-Qaida culprits of the 11th September 2001 terrorists attack America threatened by Taliban leaders of Afghanistan.

2011 Al-Qaida leader Killing

After two months, Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader, and his fighters were on the run. Moreover, the United States Navy SEALS located and killed bin Laden in 2011 in neighboring country Pakistan. According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, over 47245 Afghan civilians killed in the twenty-year war. According to the American Defense Department, around 2442 American troops killed, together with a projected thirty-eight hundred American private security contractors. Furthermore, over 1145 troops from NATO allies lost their lives. According to the Costs of War project, America projected to spend over $2 trillion in Afghanistan during the course of the Afghan war.

US Officially Starts Afghanistan Troop Pullout
The US Officially Starts Afghanistan Troop Pullout
Source: Web

Why are United States forces in Afghanistan?

On 11th September 2001, terror attacks in America killed almost three thousand people. The leader of Islamist terror group al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, rapidly identified as the man responsible. Radical Islamists, the Taliban who ran Afghanistan and endangered Bin Laden, refused to hand him over to America. Therefore, one month after the 9/11 incident, America launched airstrikes against Afghanistan. As other nations joined the war, the Taliban instantly removed from power. But their influence grew back, and the Taliban dug in. Meanwhile, America and its allies struggled to stop the government of Afghanistan from collapsing and to end fatal attacks by the Taliban.

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