Kabul, April 28: Nine years after the occupation of Afghanistan, a high-ranking US officer has said the drawdown of US-led foreign forces from the Asian country will be a slow process.
“It’s not one morning people are going to wake up and all coalition forces will be gone. It’ll be a slowly thinning out process,” AFP quoted Major General Richard Mills as saying on Wednesday.
General Mills, a commander of US Marines in who was in charge of operations in Afghanistan’s Helmand and Nimruz provinces from 2010 until recently, has warned that a quick withdrawal of troops will increase the risk of militancy.
Mills also said foreign troops have been able to turn over local responsibility both to the Afghan police and to the Afghan army in some places but reiterated there is “a fairly lengthy timeline in front of us.”
Washington has tripled the number of US troops in Afghanistan, compared to 2009, to about 100,000. The Obama administration had promised to begin a drawdown of troop levels in July but later announced US forces would leave in 2014.
On Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said NATO commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus should make it clear how many US soldiers will leave Afghanistan in July.
Meanwhile, the US has plans to set up permanent military bases in Afghanistan, claiming the bases aim at fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
——–Agencies