Taliban Welcomes US Troops Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Taliban, an Afghani militant movement, has welcomed the declaration of US President Donald J. Trump to withdraw the last American soldiers from Afghanistan by Christmas.

Trump tweeted that the United States of America (USA) must bring home the remaining small number of men and women who are still serving in Afghanistan by next Christmas.

That date comes months before the deadline specified in the agreement signed between Washington and the Taliban movement to end the longest war in the history of the USA.

It is noteworthy that the Trump administration signed on February 29 a historic agreement with the "Taliban" movement, which stipulated the withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan by mid-2021 at the latest, in exchange for security commitments from the movement and its engagement indirect peace negotiations with the Kabul government.

The US President's National Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien, had announced that the USA is going to reduce the number of its soldiers in Afghanistan to 2,500 people by the beginning of next year.

When President Trump took office, O'Brien said, there were more than 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

Today there are fewer than 5,000 soldiers and the number will reach 2,500 by early next year.

At the end of last February, the United States and the "Taliban" movement signed a peace agreement under which the American side committed to withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan within 14 months following the signing of the deal.

Last July, the US Department of Defense (the Pentagon) announced the completion of the first phase of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, which resulted in reducing its number to 8.6 thousand soldiers.

Trump revealed in September that the number of US military personnel in Afghanistan would soon shrink to 4,000.

On the other hand, the representative of the Russian President for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said that US President Donald Trump's announcement about the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan appeared to be a propaganda campaign ahead of the presidential elections on November 3.

Kabulov, who is the director of the second pision for Asia at the Russian Foreign Ministry, added that these words came during the election campaign, and Trump probably wants to show his voters that he is fulfilling his promises made in his previous election campaign.

The Russian diplomat indicated that the United States has the potential to make such a reduction, and stressed that the presence of US forces in Afghanistan does not significantly improve the situation.

The day before, Trump announced that the remaining US forces in Afghanistan would return to the United States by December.

And new data provided by the US Department of Defense showed that the number of soldiers infected with Coronavirus in the ranks of the US armed forces approached 70,000, registering an increase of more than 7% within two weeks.

The Pentagon confirmed in a report published yesterday, Wednesday, that the virus has been diagnosed with 47,658 military personnel, 10,751 inpiduals who perform civil service in the army, and 6,377 members of the families of the military, in addition to 4,481 employees of companies contracting with the Pentagon.

So far, the number of people who have died from the virus in the US Army has reached 98, including 8 soldiers and 60 people in the civil service.

While the number of people recovering from the pandemic in the US armed forces has reached more than 47,000, the majority of whom perform military service.

The highest number of casualties was recorded in the US Ground Forces (17803), followed by the Navy (10585) and Air Force (7407), the Marine Corps (5942), and the National Guard (5566), in addition to 355 wounded who work in the various bodies of the Pentagon.