‘Tough’ to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by May 1, says Joe Biden

TIL Desk/World/Washington/ President Joe Biden says that it will be tough for the US to meet a May 1 deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan but that the complete drawdown won’t take much longer. The deadline to end America’s longest war six weeks from now was set under an agreement reached by former President Donald Trump and the Taliban, without the buy-in of the Afghan government.

Biden, in an interview that aired Wednesday, said he was consulting with allies on the pace of the drawdown. Of meeting the May 1 deadline, he said it could happen, but it is tough. If the deadline is extended, he added, it won’t be by a lot longer.

Biden, like his predecessor, has promised to end the nearly 20-year conflict and bring home more than 2,500 American troops in the country down from about 13,000 troops a year ago. The Trump deal caught some American allies off guard, as the roughly 7,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan rely on the US for logistics and security support.