The U.S. general leading the war in Afghanistan, Austin Miller, will relinquish command on Monday, U.S. officials say, in a symbolic end to America’s longest conflict even as Taliban insurgents gain momentum.
Miller will become America’s last four-star general on the ground in Afghanistan in a ceremony in Kabul that will come ahead of a formal end to the military mission there on Aug. 31, a date set by President Joe Biden as he looks to extricate American from the two-decade-old war.
While the ceremony may offer some sense of closure for U.S. veterans who served in Afghanistan, it’s unclear whether it will succeed in reassuring the Western-backed Afghan government as the Taliban press ground offensives that have given them control of more territory than at any time since the conflict began.
U.S. Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, whose Florida-based Central Command oversees U.S. forces in hot-spots including Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, flew into Kabul to underscore America’s future assistance to Afghan security forces.
“Admittedly, it’s going to be very different than it was in the past. I’m not going to minimize that,” McKenzie told a small group of reporters. “But we’re going to support them.”
But he also cautioned that the Taliban, in his view, appeared to be seeking “a military solution” to a war that the United States has unsuccessfully tried to end with a peace agreement between the Taliban and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government.
He cautioned that provincial capitals were at risk but noted that the U.S.-backed Afghan security forces “are determined to fight very hard for those provincial capitals.”
Even after Miller steps down, McKenzie will still be able to authorize U.S. air strikes against the Taliban through Aug. 31 in support of Ghani’s Western-backed government.
But after that, the Marine general said when it came to U.S. strikes in Afghanistan, his focus will shift squarely to counter-terrorism operations against al Qaeda and Islamic State.
