US President Joe Biden has authorized an additional 1,000 US troops for deployment to Afghanistan raising to roughly 5,000 the number of US troops. They will ensure an orderly and safe drawdown of Americans and allied personnel. US troops will also help in the evacuation of Afghans who worked with the military during the nearly two-decade war. The militant and fundamentalist movement gained control of key parts of the country. Biden had set the 31st August deadline for fully withdraw combat forces before the 20th anniversary of the attacks. President Biden issued a statement and said, “When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor, which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019 that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001″.
Biden added, “I was the fourth president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan with two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth”. A defense official said in a media statement that the president had approved Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s recommendation that the lead battalion of the 82nd Airborne Brigade Combat Team assists in the State Department’s drawdown. Initially, 1,000 troops were in place to aid with the withdrawal. An additional contingent of Marines arrived in Kabul as part of a 3,000-troop force intended to secure an airlift of US Embassy personnel and Afghan allies. Officials have stressed that the newly arriving troops’ mission was limited to assisting the airlift of embassy personnel and Afghan allies.
Biden spent the weekend at Camp David, and Vice President Kamala Harris held a secure video conference on Saturday morning with national security officials before Biden announced the additional troops. On Saturday, the Taliban captured Mazar-e-Sharif and closed in on Kabul by taking the Logar province just to the south. The Taliban have made major advances in recent days, including capturing Herat and Kandahar. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, “Clearly from their actions, it appears as if they are trying to get Kabul isolated”. Biden had given the Pentagon until Aug. 31 to complete the withdrawal of the 2,500 to 3,000 troops that were in Afghanistan. But the decision in recent days to dispatch 4,000 fresh troops suggested that American forces and their allies were at risk.