Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, ahead of the May 1 deadline to withdraw U.S. forces from the embattled country.
The military leader, who was flanked by tight security throughout the visit, met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Gen. Scott Miller, and U.S. diplomat Ross Wilson, among others.
“I’m very grateful for my time with President @ashrafghani today. I came to Afghanistan to listen and learn,” Austin wrote in a tweet regarding his trip. “This visit has been very helpful for me, and it will inform my participation in the review we are undergoing here with @POTUS.”
The move follows President Biden revealing that he’s “in the process” of reaching a verdict on whether to withdraw all U.S. boots on the ground, keep them in the country indefinitely or require their services for the next six months per Trump-era peace agreement with the Taliban.
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“I’m in the process of making that decision now as to when they’ll leave,” Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview last week. “The fact is that that was not a very solidly negotiated deal that the president, the former president, worked out. And so we’re in consultation with our allies as well as the government, and that decision’s going to be — it’s in process now.”
The president added that a full-scale military pullout “could happen, but it is tough.”
The Taliban has largely refrained from attacks against U.S. forces, but the organization ramped up assaults against Afghan security forces, leading Austin to call for “more progress” in the negotiations.
“Clearly, the violence is too high right now and more progress needs to be made in the Afghan-led negotiations,” Austin said in February. “So I urge all parties to choose the path towards peace. And the violence must decrease now.”
Biden, while on the campaign trail, advocated for ending “forever wars,” including the yearslong conflict in Afghanistan.
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“Biden will end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, which have cost us untold blood and treasure,” his team wrote on his webpage. “As he has long argued, Biden will bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan and narrowly focus our mission on Al-Qaeda and ISIS. And he will end our support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Staying entrenched in unwinnable conflicts only drains our capacity to lead on other issues that require our attention, and it prevents us from rebuilding the other instruments of American power.”
Approximately 3,500 troops are in Afghanistan, which is around 1,000 more than what was disclosed by Pentagon officials, according to the New York Times.
