President Obama announced Tuesday that the United States will keep its current number of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through the end of 2015.
The specific plan for troop withdrawal in 2016 will be decided later this year. The decision to keep troops in Afghanistan was announced during a joint press conference with Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani. President Ghani is leading an Afghan delegation visiting D.C. from March 22-26.
According to CNN, President Obama’s former plan was to reduce the number of troops to 5,500 by the end of 2015. A complete withdrawal was to be made by 2016.
“We’re essentially moving the drawdown pace over to the right by several months,” Obama said in Tuesday’s press conference. He added, “in part because we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to help Afghan security forces succeed; so we don’t have to go back.”
The 2014 presidential election was the first democratic and peaceful transfer in power in Afghanistan’s history, which President Ghani credits to the Afghan security forces. According to the White House, the training and security provided by U.S. troops is important as Afghan security continues to grow. The partnership with Afghanistan is aimed at preventing the country from being used to launch terrorist attacks.
According to NBC News, the announcement to keep troop numbers up has been made as spring fighting season begins among terrorist groups who are looking for new recruits. Afghanistan is a potential recruiting ground for Islamic extremists. Halting the troop withdrawal at this time will allow U.S. forces to help Afghanistan security forces succeed, President Obama said.
The Obama Administration still intends to withdraw troops by the end of 2016.
According to CNN, the president said, “The timeline for a withdrawal down to an embassy center presence, a normalization of our presence in Afghanistan, remains the end of 2016. So that hasn’t changed. Our transition out of a combat role has not changed.”
