The United States Department of Defense completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan on 30 August 2021. This helped bring to a close the 2001–2021 war. In February 2020, the first Trump administration and the Taliban signed the United States–Taliban deal in Doha, Qatar, which stipulated fighting restrictions for both the US and the Taliban, and in return for the Taliban's counter-terrorism commitments, provided for the withdrawal of all NATO forces from Afghanistan by 1 May 2021. Following the deal, the US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks on the Taliban to the detriment of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), and its fight against the Taliban insurgency.
The Biden administration's final decision in April 2021 was to begin the withdrawal on 1 May 2021, but the final pull-out of all US troops was delayed until September 2021, triggering the start of the collapse of the ANSF. This collapse led to the Taliban takeover of Kabul on 15 August 2021.
As part of the United States–Taliban deal, the Trump administration agreed to an initial reduction of US forces from 13,000 to 8,600 troops by July 2020, followed by a complete withdrawal by 1 May 2021, if the Taliban kept its commitments. At the start of the Biden administration, there were 2,500 US soldiers remaining in Afghanistan and, in April 2021, Biden said the US would not begin withdrawing these soldiers before 1 May, but would complete the withdrawal symbolically by 11 September. The Taliban began a final offensive on 1 May and, on 8 July, Biden moved up the completion date to 31 August. There were about 650 US troops in Afghanistan in early August 2021, tasked with protecting Hamid Karzai International Airport and the US Embassy in Kabul. NATO's Resolute Support Mission concluded on 12 July 2021 while US intelligence assessments estimated as late as July that Kabul would fall within months or weeks following withdrawal of all American forces from Afghanistan, the security situation deteriorated rapidly.
The US also launched Operation Allies Refuge to airlift the American translators and select Afghan citizens considered at risk of reprisals and US Forces Afghanistan Forward was established on 7 July 2021 as a successor command overseeing the evacuation of all American diplomatic, security, advisory, and counter-terrorism personnel remaining in the country after the withdrawal of US troops. On 12 August 2021, following continued Taliban victories across Afghanistan, the Biden administration announced that 3,000 US troops would be deployed to Kabul Airport to evacuate embassy personnel, US nationals and Special Immigrant Visa applicants. With the rapid advance of the Taliban in the provinces, on 14 August the US increased its troop commitment to 5,000. On 15 August, with the fall of Kabul, another 1,000 troops were deployed, and on 16 August, a further 1,000 troops were deployed, bringing the total number of troops to 7,000. The last US military planes left Kabul airport at 11:59 p.m. Kabul time on 30 August 2021.
The US withdrawal was widely described as "disastrous", with around one thousand American citizens and Afghans holding visas left behind in the country. On 28 and 29 September 2021, US secretary of defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and United States Central Command (CENTCOM) commander Gen. Frank McKenzie were among the numerous Defense Department officials who denied during congressional testimonies President Biden's previous claim that his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was because of advice from senior US military leaders and stated that they had in fact advised him to keep some troops in Afghanistan.
The United States Department of Defense completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan on 30 August 2021. This helped bring to a close the 2001–2021 war. In February 2020, the first Trump administration and the Taliban signed the United States–Taliban deal in Doha, Qatar, which stipulated fighting restrictions for both the US and the Taliban, and in return for the Taliban's counter-terrorism commitments, provided for the withdrawal of all NATO forces from Afghanistan by 1 May 2021. Following the deal, the US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks on the Taliban to the detriment of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), and its fight against the Taliban insurgency.
The Biden administration's final decision in April 2021 was to begin the withdrawal on 1 May 2021, but the final pull-out of all US troops was delayed until September 2021, triggering the start of the collapse of the ANSF. This collapse led to the Taliban takeover of Kabul on 15 August 2021.
As part of the United States–Taliban deal, the Trump administration agreed to an initial reduction of US forces from 13,000 to 8,600 troops by July 2020, followed by a complete withdrawal by 1 May 2021, if the Taliban kept its commitments. At the start of the Biden administration, there were 2,500 US soldiers remaining in Afghanistan and, in April 2021, Biden said the US would not begin withdrawing these soldiers before 1 May, but would complete the withdrawal symbolically by 11 September. The Taliban began a final offensive on 1 May and, on 8 July, Biden moved up the completion date to 31 August. There were about 650 US troops in Afghanistan in early August 2021, tasked with protecting Hamid Karzai International Airport and the US Embassy in Kabul. NATO's Resolute Support Mission concluded on 12 July 2021 while US intelligence assessments estimated as late as July that Kabul would fall within months or weeks following withdrawal of all American forces from Afghanistan, the security situation deteriorated rapidly.
The US also launched Operation Allies Refuge to airlift the American translators and select Afghan citizens considered at risk of reprisals and US Forces Afghanistan Forward was established on 7 July 2021 as a successor command overseeing the evacuation of all American diplomatic, security, advisory, and counter-terrorism personnel remaining in the country after the withdrawal of US troops. On 12 August 2021, following continued Taliban victories across Afghanistan, the Biden administration announced that 3,000 US troops would be deployed to Kabul Airport to evacuate embassy personnel, US nationals and Special Immigrant Visa applicants. With the rapid advance of the Taliban in the provinces, on 14 August the US increased its troop commitment to 5,000. On 15 August, with the fall of Kabul, another 1,000 troops were deployed, and on 16 August, a further 1,000 troops were deployed, bringing the total number of troops to 7,000. The last US military planes left Kabul airport at 11:59 p.m. Kabul time on 30 August 2021.
The US withdrawal was widely described as "disastrous", with around one thousand American citizens and Afghans holding visas left behind in the country. On 28 and 29 September 2021, US secretary of defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and United States Central Command (CENTCOM) commander Gen. Frank McKenzie were among the numerous Defense Department officials who denied during congressional testimonies President Biden's previous claim that his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was because of advice from senior US military leaders and stated that they had in fact advised him to keep some troops in Afghanistan.
Under President Donald Trump, the US strategy in Afghanistan was initially described in April 2017 as "an increase in special operations forces to train, advise and assist Afghan forces; a more robust plan to go after elements in Pakistan that aid the Taliban; the deployment of more air power and artillery; and a political commitment to the survival of the current government in Kabul".
In July 2017, when the official number of U.S. troops operating in Afghanistan was 8,400, President Trump gave the US military decision-making authority to increase troop numbers for military operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan without first seeking formal approval from the White House. U.S. secretary of defenseJim Mattis said: "Our overall mission in Afghanistan remains the same."
On 21 August 2017, President Trump unveiled his administration's official strategy for Afghanistan, saying "victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating the Islamic State (ISIL), crushing al-Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over the country, and stopping mass terror attacks against Americans before they emerge". On 24 August, the commander for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General John W. Nicholson Jr., confirmed that troop levels, strategy, and conditions for success were dependent on the momentum of the war effort and on-the-ground conditions, not "arbitrary timelines". Trump did not specify the number of troops to be committed under his new open-ended strategy, but congressional officials were told an additional 4,000 troops were to be deployed. The Washington Post reported on 30 August that the additional US forces for Afghanistan would likely include paratroopers as well as small Marine artillery detachments, composed of about 100 or so troops per unit, which were to be dispersed across the country to fill in gaps in air support. According to the report, air support in the form of more F-16 fighters, A-10 ground attack aircraft and additional B-52 bomber support, or a combination of all three, were likely to be used. The newspaper also stated: "The additional US forces will allow Americans to advise Afghan troops in more locations and closer to the fighting, US officials in Kabul said [...]. With more units farther away from the country's biggest bases, additional air support and artillery will be needed to cover those forces." The New York Times added that "the American military will be able to advise select Afghan brigades in the field instead of trying to mentor them from more distant headquarters. They can step up the effort to train special operations forces and, thus, substantially increase the number of Afghan commandos. This will allow American war commanders and service members to call in air and artillery strikes on behalf of more Afghan units."
On 30 August 2017, the Department of Defense disclosed that there were more troops in Afghanistan than previously acknowledged. The Pentagon stated the actual "total force" number was closer to 11,000 rather than the previously stated 8,400, with the larger number including covert as well as temporary units. The lower troop-level estimate was a result of misleading accounting measures and red tape.
In September 2017, the Trump administration began deploying more than 3,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total number of US forces in Afghanistan to more than 14,000. When General Austin "Scott" Miller took command of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan in September 2018, there were 15,000 US troops deployed. In October 2019, following an abrupt end to peace talks with the Taliban a month prior, General Miller announced that US forces had been reduced to 13,000 within a year as a result of a unilateral decision by the US command in Kabul. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper commented on the troop decrease, saying "General Miller is doing exactly what I asked all our commanders to do when I entered office ... to look where they can free up time, money and manpower," as part of the National Defense Strategy to gradually shift global US military strategy from prioritizing counter-terrorism to also countering Russian and Chinese power projection. In December 2019, the Afghanistan Papers revealed that high-ranking military and government officials were generally of the opinion that the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable, but kept this hidden from the public. By the end of 2019, nearly 2,400 Americans had died in the war, with more than 20,000 wounded.
United States–Taliban deal
On 29 February 2020, the US, represented by diplomatic envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban signed the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, commonly known as the US–Taliban deal, that provided for the withdrawal from Afghanistan of "all military forces of the United States, its allies, and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel" within 14 months (i.e., by 1 May 2021). At the time, there were about 13,000 US troops in the country. The withdrawal was conditional on the Taliban upholding the terms of the agreement that included "not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control". The US was to reduce its forces in Afghanistan by about 5,000 troops to 8,600 within 135 days. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg pledged to initially reduce NATO's numbers from roughly 16,000 troops to about 12,000.
In the meantime, intra-Afghan peace talks, comprising the Taliban and the Afghan government, were to work out a more concrete power-sharing settlement. That time frame would give the Afghan government the cover of US military protection while negotiating. US secretary of stateMike Pompeo said the remaining US troops would serve as leverage to ensure the Taliban lived up to its promises.
On 1 March 2020, the intra-Afghan talks hit a major snag when President Ashraf Ghani stated during a press conference that the Afghan government, which was not a party to the deal, would reject the US–Taliban deal's call for conducting a prisoner exchange with the Taliban by the proposed start of intra-Afghan negotiations on 10 March 2020, even stating that "[t]he government of Afghanistan has made no commitment to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners", that "an agreement that is signed behind closed doors will have basic problems in its implementation tomorrow", and that "[t]he release of prisoners is not the United States authority, but it is the authority of the government of Afghanistan". Ghani also stated that any prisoner exchange "cannot be a prerequisite for talks" but must be a part of the negotiations.
Withdrawal
Some US troops withdrew from Afghanistan on 9 March 2020, as stipulated in the US–Taliban deal. On 10 March 2020, US Central Command (CENTCOM) rejected reports that the US military had developed a plan to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan. General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., chief of CENTCOM, stated that the plan was to reduce the number of US troops in Afghanistan to 8,600 over a 14-month period. The US Army later confirmed that more troops would be sent to Afghanistan in the summer of 2020. According to CENTCOM, the US had reduced its Afghan troop numbers to 8,600 by 18 June 2020, in accordance with the US–Taliban deal. On 1 July 2020, following media reports of Taliban participation in an alleged Russian bounty program to target US troops, the US House Armed Services Committee voted for a National Defense Authorization Act amendment to set additional conditions to be met before President Trump could continue the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, including requiring an assessment on whether any country has offered incentives for the Taliban to attack US and coalition troops, along with prohibiting funding to reduce troop numbers to below 8,000, and again at 4,000, unless the administration certified that doing so would not compromise American interests in Afghanistan. The US Senate rejected an attempt by Senator Rand Paul's amendment to the NDAA, which would have required the withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan within a year and bring an end to the 19-year war.
In August 2020, US intelligence officials reportedly assessed that the Iranian government had also offered bounties for American soldiers in Afghanistan. Iran was accused of having made payments to the Haqqani network that were linked to at least six attacks in 2019, including the sophisticated attack on Bagram Air Base on 11 December 2019. According to CNN, the Trump administration "never mentioned Iran's connection to the bombing, an omission current and former officials said was connected to the broader prioritization" of the US–Taliban deal and withdrawal from Afghanistan. The alleged Iran-Taliban ties were cited as part of the justification for the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. On 8 August, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that the United States would reduce troop levels to below 5,000 by the end of November 2020.
On 17 November 2020, acting US secretary of defense Christopher C. Miller announced further withdrawals of troops by 15 January 2021, leaving 2,500 troops across both Afghanistan and Iraq, down from the previous amount of 4,500 and 3,000, respectively. US national security advisorRobert C. O'Brien issued a statement on behalf of President Trump that it was his hope the incoming Biden administration would have all US troops "come home safely, and in their entirety" by their previously agreed 1 May 2021 deadline. Joe Biden had previously signaled his support for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan during his presidential campaign, although he left room for the possibility that the US would be "open to maintaining a small number of troops in the country whose mission would focus solely on counterterrorism operations". O'Brien added that the remaining troops in Afghanistan were to defend American diplomats, the American embassy, and other agencies of the US government operating in Afghanistan. The announcement was criticized by United States Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg warned in a statement that "the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high". Critics said that the Afghan withdrawal would undermine the fragile security situation in the region and that the troop reductions would hamper the ongoing peace talks between Taliban fighters and the government of Afghanistan. According to a senior defense official the conditions used to measure the drawdown were based on whether national security would be threatened by a reduction in Afghanistan to 2,500 troops. "We do not feel that it is," said the official. The other condition was, "can we maintain a force posture in Afghanistan that permits us to carry out our mission with our allies and partners?" The announcement created anxiety in Afghanistan because there was a fear of a Taliban resurgence and US troops were considered a hedge against the group. Atiqullah Amarkhel, a retired Afghan Army general and military analyst, told The New York Times that the Taliban "are stronger than in the past, and if the Americans leave and don't support and assist the Afghan Army they won't resist long, and the Taliban will take over."