US troops may not leave Afghanistan, Gen. Miller suggests
A top US military commander has said that the United States should not turn its back on Afghanistan, suggesting that many American troops may not leave the country even after the promised withdrawal.
"I would like us not to just turn our backs on this," Army Gen. Scott Miller, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said in an interview on Sunday.
"I think there are tremendous lessons. And, you know, they're not all positives, there's victories as well. So we will celebrate those within organizations, and really learn from those things that didn't go as well as they wanted to. You know, an honest self-reflection, that's going to be important going forward,” he added.
Earlier, the general has warned that the security situation in Afghanistan is "not good" amid American troops withdrawal from the war-torn country.
Miller said the Taliban are taking control of dozens of districts and creating conditions that "won't look good for Afghanistan in the future if there is a push for a military takeover.”
“The loss of terrain and the rapidity of that loss of terrain has to be concerning," Miller said last week. “As you watch the Taliban moving across the country, what you don't want to have happen is that the people lose hope, and they believe they now have a foregone conclusion presented to them."
At its peak in mid-2011, nearly 100,000 US troops passed through the compound, apart from some 35,000 US contractors, which have now plummeted to 2,500 troops and 18,000 contractors.
The full withdrawal of some 2,500 US troops from the country is expected to complete by mid or late July, ahead of US President Joe Biden’s September 11 deadline.
The US will reportedly leave hundreds of troops in Afghanistan even after the promised withdrawal from the war-torn country.
About 650 American troops are likely to stay in Afghanistan to provide security at the US Embassy after US forces leave the country later this summer, The Associated Press reported last week. Hundreds of more troops will also stay at the Kabul airport.
The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 under the pretext of the so-called war against terror.
Washington has spent trillions of dollars waging war on the impoverished country, which has left thousands of Afghan civilians and American soldiers dead.
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