Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin paid an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, while President Joe Biden’s government faces a decision to withdraw troops by the May 1 deadline, as required by a US agreement with the Taliban. .
The first member of Biden’s cabinet to travel to the country, Austin met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, as well as with General Scott Miller, the top US commander in Afghanistan, according to the press traveling with the secretary.
“I came to Afghanistan to listen and learn,” said Austin in a tweet accompanied by a photo of him meeting with President Ghani. The visit was “very useful” and will help inform the government’s decisions about Afghanistan, he said.
Austin flew from New Delhi to Kabul as part of a trip that included visits to Japan and South Korea.
Before arriving in Afghanistan, he told reporters in India that President Biden “has not made a decision or made any announcement about when he will decide to remove” American troops from Afghanistan.
Former President Donald Trump’s administration signed an agreement with the Taliban last year that required all US troops to leave Afghanistan by May 1 in exchange for insurgents to enter into peace negotiations with their opponents in the Afghan government and to commit to preventing al Qaeda or other extremists from launching terrorist attacks in Afghanistan.
NBC News previously reported that Biden is considering keeping US troops in Afghanistan until November, instead of withdrawing them until the May 1 deadline.
The military presented several options to the White House, including withdrawing troops until or close to May 1, keeping troops in the country indefinitely or keeping troops in Afghanistan for a defined period to be determined by Biden, which may include a period of six months extension, reported NBC News.
Biden said in an interview with ABC News last week that a withdrawal of troops “may happen, but it is difficult”. The president said that if the troops’ departure date were postponed, it would not be “much longer”.
“I am in the process of making a decision now as to when they will be leaving,” Biden told ABC News.
There are about 2,500 American soldiers still in Afghanistan. American troops have been in Afghanistan since an American-led force overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001 by harboring al Qaeda militants who organized the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington.