A week after reports about a possible withdrawal of US troops from the country, a White House spokesman, quoted by the Bloomberg News, said the US President Donald Trump has not ordered the Pentagon to pull troops out of Afghanistan.
“The president has not made a determination to drawdown US military presence in Afghanistan and he has not directed the Department of Defense to begin the process of withdrawing US personnel from Afghanistan,” the Bloomberg News quoted Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the National Security Council, as saying in an emailed statement on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report about the possible withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
But, the US and NATO Forces Commander in Afghanistan Gen. Scott Miller in a meeting with Nangarhar governor last week on Sunday assured that they will continue to support the Afghan forces even if they get an order about troop withdrawal – an issue which Miller said is rumors by “newspapers”.
“I have seen the same rumors I have from the newspapers but all I would assure you is first of all I have no orders, so nothing changed,” he said in the meeting.
There are at least 14,000 forces in Afghanistan who are engaged in counterterror as well as train and advise mission for their Afghan counterparts.
