Biden rules out changing withdrawal plan from Afghan

TIL Desk/World/Washington/ United States President Joe Biden Tuesday ruled out any change in the withdrawal of his troops from Afghanistan despite the Taliban increasingly gaining control over large parts of the country. President Biden has ordered the withdrawal of all the US troops from Afghanistan by September 11.

The Pentagon says it has already withdrawn more than 90 per cent of its troops from the war-ravaged country. “No,” Biden told reporters at the White House when asked if his current plan to withdraw troops could change at all.         

“Look, we spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years. We trained and equipped over 300,000 Afghan forces. Afghan leaders have to come together.  We lost thousands — lost to death and injury — thousands of American personnel.  They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” he asserted.         

“The United States — I’ll insist we continue to keep the commitments we made of providing close air support, making sure that their air force functions and is operable, resupplying their forces with food and equipment, and paying all their salaries. But they’ve got to want to fight.  They have outnumbered the Taliban,” Biden said.