The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan will not be completed in the next few days, despite press reports. This was announced on Friday, July 2, by US President Joe Biden.
"We are moving exactly on schedule, we are at the point where we expected to be. I just wanted to guarantee that there is sufficient room for maneuver," the head of State told reporters. His words are quoted by the Reuters news agency.
The President added that a number of US military personnel will remain in the country.
Earlier in the day, CNN reported on the completion of the withdrawal of US soldiers and their allies from Afghanistan, the material said that the last American military left the Bagram base. At the same time, according to the channel, less than a thousand military personnel will remain in the country to protect the American embassy and the international airport in Kabul.
As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on July 2, the militants of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group banned in Russia are using an unjustified pause in the negotiation process to resolve the situation in Afghanistan and are pulling their forces in the country. He pointed out that this situation worries Moscow, since against the background of the hasty withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, the henchmen of this terrorist organization are developing territories in the north of the country in close proximity to the borders of Russian allies.
On June 24, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said that the situation in Afghanistan will increasingly degrade as US and NATO troops withdraw from the country. This, according to him, will contribute to the increase in the terrorist activity of the IG and Al-Qaeda (both organizations are banned in the Russian Federation).
Patrushev also pointed out that during the stay of the Western military in Afghanistan, the volume of drug production in the country has increased 40 times. This, as the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation pointed out, can provide a powerful resource base for terrorists.
On June 8, it was reported that the United States had withdrawn more than half of its troops from Afghanistan. The Central Command of the US Armed Forces (CENTCOM) noted that more than 50 flights were carried out to export cargo from the country.
On April 30, Russia, Pakistan, the United States and China held consultations on the Afghan settlement. Following the meeting, the Russian Foreign Ministry published a joint statement of the parties, which spoke about the final withdrawal of the US military by September 11, 2021 and the expectation of the Taliban movement banned in the Russian Federation to fulfill its counter-terrorism obligations.
