Most foreign troops can leave 'within four years'
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he believes most foreign troops will be able to leave "within four years", even as he praised US President Donald Trump's recent plan to keep forces in the country indefinitely.
Most US and coalition troops withdrew at the end of 2014, after which Afghan troops struggled to contain resurgent Taliban militants and a nascent Islamic State presence.
Foreign troops have since returned to providing more support for Afghan forces and in August Trump announced a plan that will send thousands of additional US and allied troops to advise and assist the Afghans, including by providing more air strikes.
"Within four years, we think our security forces would be able to do the constitutional thing, which is the claim of legitimate monopoly of power," Ghani told the BBC in response to a question about when he thinks Nato troops can withdraw.
He nevertheless praised Trump's decision to base US troop levels on "conditions on the ground and not arbitrary timetables".
In 2016, Nato and coalition countries committed to funding Afghan security forces until at least 2020 to the tune of more than $4 billion per year, reported Reuters.
At a hearing before the US Senate's Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, senior military leaders said they foresaw a long commitment to Afghanistan.
"Certainly we may have advisers there ten years from now," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said.
General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the join chiefs of staff, said "there is no time horizon" for the international military presence.
Meanwhile, the US is to ask Nato allies to contribute around 1,000 extra troops to help in the battle against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, the new US ambassador to the alliance said yesterday.
Kay Bailey Hutchison said the forces would add to the roughly 3,000 US troops who are already on their way to Afghanistan under President Donald Trump's new strategy against the militants, reported AFP.
The human rights group Amnesty International urged European nations yesterday to stop sending Afghans who do not qualify for asylum back to their "deeply unsafe" home country, saying the policy risked causing serious harm to those affected.
The call comes after a steady rise in violence over recent years as the Taliban has gained ground across the country and cities including the capital Kabul have been hit by a wave of suicide attacks.
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