US generals suggest leaving more than 2,000 troops in Afghanistan – PRAVDA.sk

Senior US generals said in the Senate on Tuesday that they had recommended that US troops remain in Afghanistan and support the Afghan government, expressing concern that the Taliban had not severed ties with the al-Qaeda terrorist group. The AFP agency informed about it.

In the archive image, members of the US Marines at a base in Helmand province.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Corps of Chiefs of Staff, and commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, General Kenneth McKenzie, told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that he had personally recommended that some 2,500 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan to prevent the fall of the government in Kabul and return. Taliban to power.

As Reuters recalled, US President Joe Biden refused in August to receive such a recommendation.

In April, Biden ordered the complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan by September 11, following an agreement reached by former President Donald Trump with the Taliban to end the presence of US troops in the country.

Read more Kubis: Developments in Afghanistan did not surprise me at all

Milley, McKenzie and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke before the Senate Armed Forces Committee on Tuesday over the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

Milley said the Taliban “was and remains a terrorist organization and still did not sever ties with al-Qaeda,” which Afghanistan used as a base in planning the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

He added that there was a “very real possibility” that local branches of al-Qaeda or Islamic State (IS) terrorist organizations would be re-established under the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which could pose a terrorist threat to the United States.

In retrospect, Austin said, the U.S. government believed too much in its ability to build a viable Afghan government. “The fact that the Afghan army, which we trained with our partners, simply dissolved – in many cases without a single shot – surprised us all,” said the Pentagon chief. “It would be dishonest to say the opposite,” he added.