WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD – The U.S. military troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is more than 90% complete, U.S. Central Command announced Tuesday. The news comes days after U.S. and international forces left Bagram Airfield, which has served for nearly two decades as the center of the U.S. fight to remove Taliban forces from power and take down al-Qaida […]
PENTAGON – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected Thursday to approve moving the only aircraft carrier based in the Asia-Pacific region to the Middle East, two defense officials told VOA. The rare movement of the USS Ronald Reagan, which is based in Yokosuka, Japan, and usually deploys around the Pacific, would support the withdrawal […]
ISLAMABAD – Authorities in Afghanistan said Sunday that national security forces were locked in fierce battles with Taliban insurgents to keep them from overrunning an eastern provincial center as U.S.-led foreign troops continue to withdraw from the country. The Taliban came close to , the capital of the embattled Laghman province, after capturing key […]
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – Taliban insurgents have captured a district in eastern Afghanistan and negotiated a temporary truce with government forces in another, as U.S.-led foreign troops continue to withdraw from the country. Separately, a roadside bomb blast early Thursday killed at least nine civilians, including women and children, in southern Helmand province. Official […]
WASHINGTON – Troops and equipment are leaving Afghanistan, days ahead of the official start of the U.S. withdrawal, the White House said Thursday, marking the beginning of the end of America’s longest war. “A drawdown is under way,” White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One, as President Joe Biden […]
PENTAGON – The United States is positioning more firepower in the Middle East and South Asia to provide cover for U.S. troops as they prepare to leave Afghanistan. The Pentagon on Friday announced that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to remain in the region for “a period […]
“With today’s decision, President Biden recognizes what the people of the United States and Afghanistan have long known: we simply cannot bomb our way to peace.” Progressive lawmakers and peace activists on Tuesday welcomed news that President Joe Biden plans to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11, a move that if accompanied by an […]
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan need to do more to meet the terms of a 2020 peace deal with the United States to allow for all international forces to leave the country by a May deadline. Stoltenberg spoke to reporters in Brussels ahead of a meeting later […]
ISLAMABAD – Officials in Afghanistan say a massive vehicle-borne bombing of a military base in eastern Ghazni province Sunday killed at least 30 security force members. Baz Mohammad Hemat, head of the provincial public health department, told VOA the blast also injured at least 24 personnel. The army base on the outskirts of the provincial capital, […]