New Delhi: Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Monday said, “The US military could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan due to the gains made by the Taliban insurgents.”
President Joe Biden has already decided to withdraw all the US soldiers from Afghanistan by September, but “The pace could be adjusted based on conditions,” Kirby said.
Kirby in his official statement said that “The situation in Afghanistan changes as the Taliban continue to conduct these attacks and to raid district centers as well as the violence, which is still too high. If there need to be changes made to the pace, or the scope and scale of the retrograde, on any given day or in any given week, we want to maintain the flexibility to do that.”
Some Afghanistan-based experts have also predicted that the situation may worsen in the future once the US army will leave the country. The Taliban in Afghanistan could be uncontrollable in absence of the US army.
John Kirby further added that “We are constantly taking a look at this, every single day. What is the situation on the ground, what capabilities do we have, what additional resources do we need to move out of Afghanistan, and at what pace? All of these decisions are being made in real-time.”
A statement given by the Pentagon last week said that “the withdrawal, ordered by Biden in April after nearly two decades fighting Al-Qaeda and helping government forces battle the Taliban, is around half completed.”
Kirby said US forces will continue to support Afghan troops in fighting the Taliban and we will continue to assist Afghan forces.”
The Pentagon has already turned over several of its key bases to government security forces and has removed hundreds of cargo plane-loads of equipment.