United States Defense Secretary Mark Esper in an interview with the Fox News said that no more than 5,000 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan by the end of November 2020. This force reduction is part of the Trump administration efforts to reduce presence of U.S. forces in the region.
“We’re going down to a number less than 5,000 by the end of November. We need to brief Congress [about] what that looks like,” Esper said during the interview. He also cautioned that the troop reduction would be “conditions-based” and carried out as long as the Pentagon felt it could proceed with missions in the region and the U.S. mission in the region is not disrupted by the force reduction.
“Right now, we think that we can do all the core missions, first and foremost being ensured the United States is not threatened by terrorists coming out of Afghanistan,” he said. “We can do those at a lower level.”
“In the meantime, we see the Afghan peace process — it’s not perfect, but it’s moving forward, slowly,” he added. “You know, it’s a windy road. It’s a rough road.”
The Trump administration and the Taliban earlier this year signed a deal including one of the conditions being the ending of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. In exchange for U.S. forces withdrawal from Afghanistan, Taliban agreed that it will not engage in terrorism against the U.S.
If the conditions of the deal met, U.S. will completely withdraw from Afghanistan. The deal includes intra-Afghan negotiations and commitments on counterterrorism. Negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government have faced setbacks due attacks by the Taliban and the exchange of prisoners between both parties.
The Pentagon announced in July, 2020 that the U.S. had withdrawn from five military bases in the country and its current troop level is around 8000s.
