Withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan (2020–2021)

The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan refers to President Joe Biden’s 2021 decision to bring home all US service members stationed in the war-torn country. The decision was made after a formal agreement was made between former President Donald Trump’s administration and the Taliban, a fundamentalist religious group known for using violent tactics such as executions and suicide bombings. The existing Afghan government was not privy to the agreement, which promised the withdrawal of all US troops by May 1, 2021, putting an end to a twenty-year war. Removing US troops from Afghanistan was controversial because the United States had spent billions of dollars training the Afghan military and restoring the country, which had been ravaged by decades of warfare. Some US officials feared that without the presence of American troops, the Taliban would eventually overthrow the Afghan government, and restore the Islamist government that had previously run the country until it was toppled during the US-led invasion in 2001.

The Taliban took over Afghanistan much more quickly than the United States and its allies had anticipated. The US withdrawal culminated in a chaotic evacuation from the international airport in Kabul, as thousands of fearful Afghans desperately tried to leave alongside the last remaining US servicepeople. Amidst the chaos was a suicide bombing orchestrated by the terrorist group ISIS-K, an affiliate of the international terrorist group ISIS. Thirteen US service members and many Afghan citizens were killed in the attack. By the end of August 2021, all US troops along with most Americans and some Afghan allies had been evacuated from Afghanistan.

Background

Afghanistan had already suffered multiple decades of war and instability prior to the US invasion in 2001. In 1979, Soviet troops invaded the country to try to restore stability after a coup. The Soviets remained in Afghanistan for ten years, but were largely unsuccessful. Their presence angered US-backed guerilla fighters known as mujahideen, who were also in conflict with the Taliban. By 1996 the Taliban had taken control of parts of Afghanistan, instituting a strict interpretation of Islamic law in which individuals were executed for minor offenses and women were forbidden to leave their homes to work, go to school, or seek medical care. Also in 1996, Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, had established a headquarters in Afghanistan, with support from the Taliban. Al Qaeda supported the Taliban, who by 2001 had won control of nearly the entire country and severely repressed human rights.

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, President George W. Bush ordered the Taliban to turn over all Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda had planned the attacks and trained some of the hijackers in Afghanistan. When the Taliban refused his request, he sent US troops into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and dismantle Al Qaeda. British troops assisted the United States in the invasion, which was part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Bush anticipated that a war on terror would be a long-term fight.

During the first phase of the campaign, US forces focused on removing the Taliban from power. They did this covertly at first, aligning with anti-Taliban forces within the country. This phase of the campaign was easier than officials had anticipated, with US forces overthrowing the group in a few months. They did not capture bin Laden, however, who had fled to safety in Pakistan along with other Al Qaeda commanders. American troops did not invade Pakistan, making it a haven for Taliban fighters who in later years would go back into Afghanistan to attack US and Afghan troops. At this time, some US leaders began to question Iraq’s role in the terrorist attacks, wondering if they should focus on removing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power instead of or in addition to bin Laden.

The United States planned to reconstruct Afghanistan but lacked the finances to adequately do so. More than half of the thirty-eight billion dollars the United States had allotted for the campaign in Afghanistan was spent on strengthening the country’s army. US forces provided Afghan fighters with weapons, equipment, and training. Additionally, millions of dollars were mishandled or stolen. What was left of the financial allotment was not enough to rebuild the war-torn country.

Despite this, the United States had some initial success in its reconstruction efforts. It built new schools, hospitals, and public facilities. Women were permitted to attend school, including college, and enter the workforce. Democratic elections were held in the country for the first time since the Taliban had fallen. About 80 percent of registered voters turned out on election day in 2004, giving Hamid Karzai a five-year term as president. The following year, dozens of women claimed seats during Parliamentary elections.

By 2003, eight thousand US troops were stationed in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq had begun. This number increased in subsequent years. By mid-2010, nearly one hundred thousand troops had been deployed there. The casualties at that point included at least one thousand American troops, three hundred British troops, and one hundred fifty Canadian troops.

The Taliban were making a resurgence, and Afghanistan was becoming increasingly more dangerous. The group avoided directly engaging with the military as it had done previously and were instead inflicting damage via suicide bombings. By 2006, sixty-four suicide bombings had been launched in Afghanistan. The attacks had become more sophisticated over time, with one in 2007 killing at least seventy people, many of them children. The Taliban were better able to fund their insurgent operations than they had been in the past. They were receiving money from wealthy anti-American individuals and groups in the Persian Gulf. The Taliban were also reaping profits from their opium industry, which had become the largest in the world.

In 2011, US Navy Seals killed bin Laden in Pakistan. In June of that year, President Barack Obama announced that the country would begin bringing home American troops with the goal of a complete withdrawal in 2014. That milestone was not reached, however. President Obama opted for a transition instead. At the end of 2014, he ended all combat operations in Afghanistan, instead utilizing US soldiers to train and assist the Afghan army and protect Afghan civilians from insurgent attacks.

Overview

President Donald Trump

When President Donald Trump took office in 2017, he explained during a speech that his first instinct had been to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, but he would instead continue military operations. He believed that withdrawal should be based on combat conditions, not predetermined timelines. The following year, his administration began negotiating with the Taliban without including the Afghanistan government. In 2019, they signed an agreement with the Taliban that American troops would leave the country by May 1, 2021, and would release about five thousand Taliban prisoners from Afghan jails. Part of the agreement included the Taliban severing its ties with members of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Afghanistan. The Taliban also agreed to stop attacking American and Afghan forces.

If negotiations had gone according to plan, Afghan leaders and the Taliban were to work together (even though Afghanistan’s government was not involved in the negotiations) to create a new government and constitution. This resolution was seen as highly unlikely, however. The Afghan government and the Taliban continued to be at odds during the year preceding the scheduled US troop withdrawal. The government, led by President Ashraf Ghani, reported that the Taliban had assassinated government officials and innocent civilians including journalists, human rights activists, and several women who were shot in broad daylight.

President Joe Biden

In 2021, Joe Biden was elected President of the United States and inherited the Trump administration’s deal with the Taliban. During the early months of his presidency, Biden was warned by his national security team that withdrawing American troops could eventually lead to the Taliban taking over the country’s government.

President Biden pushed back the May 1, 2021, deadline to September 11, 2021, the twentieth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. According to President Biden, the United States had done all it could to help Afghanistan, and it was time for US soldiers to come home. However, after the withdrawal, the Taliban overthrew Afghan fighters more quickly than anyone had anticipated. On August 15, 2021, not long after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, the Taliban seized Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Though the AfFghan soldiers outnumbered the Taliban, they put up little resistance despite years of training and billions of dollars in support from the United States. Many Afghan soldiers blamed a lack of support from the government, corruption, poor pay, and other conditions as the reason for this quick collapse. While some soldiers fled, many units put down their weapons and surrendered, allowing the Taliban to easily reclaims areas that had once been guarded by US troops.

Chaos in Kabul

Hours after the Taliban had taken Kabul, thousands of Afghans desperate to leave the country crowded the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, some racing across the tarmac, pushing and shoving as they tried to climb stairs to board US military planes. Some clung to these planes as they taxied down the runway. Several individuals fell to their death as the airplanes lifted into the air. President Biden sent thousands of US troops to Afghanistan to help evacuate Americans and at-risk Afghans.

The last of the American troops left Afghanistan on August 31. In addition to the evacuation of US troops, more than 120,000 citizens and Afghan allies left the country in just a few weeks. During the final week of the evacuation, terrorists from the group ISIS-K launched a suicide bombing that killed thirteen US service members and dozens of Afghan citizens. In response to the attack, the United States launched a drone strike targeting members of the group in an area east of Kabul.

Aftermath

Once US forces had left Afghanistan, the Taliban celebrated with gunfire in the streets of Kabul. As of late 2021, experts feared massive humanitarian abuses under Taliban rule, similar to the abuses that occurred before the 2001 invasion. About two hundred Americans remained in Afghanistan after the evacuation ended. While many of them had chosen to stay, they were at risk of being kidnapped and held hostage by Taliban soldiers. Tens of thousands of Afghans who assisted the United States during the last twenty years also remained in the country. Afghans who served as translators for the US military reported receiving death threats from the Taliban, and several have been killed. Many of these individuals wanted to leave the country but were stopped from doing so by the Taliban.

The treatment of women was also of particular concern. While the Taliban promised to loosen restrictions according to Islamic law, women in some cities, such as Herat, reported widespread human rights violations under Taliban rule. The Taliban targeted high-profile women, and forbid women to leave their homes to go to work or school. Women had to follow a mandatory dress code and were not allowed to leave their homes without a male family member.

Another concern was additional terrorist attacks against Americans. The US intelligence community announced in October 2021 that terrorist groups within Afghanistan may have had the ability to launch attacks against the United States and other countries within six to twelve months. While they still considered Al Qaeda a threat, US officials were most concerned about ISIS-K, the group responsible for the suicide bombing at the airport that killed thirteen US service members and many Afghan citizens. While President Biden repeatedly described the withdrawal of troops as a success, he faced strong criticism for the resulting chaos.

Following the withdrawal, 70,000 Afghan citizens were evacuated from Afghanistan to US Defense Department locations throughout the US. The US State Department also began securing transit sites throughout other countires in the Middle East and Europe to assist in housing Afghan refugees. Two efforts, Operation Allies Welcome and Enduring Welcome, were US humanitarian outreach programs to help Afghan evacuees settle and begin legal immigration pathways.

In March 2024, the House Foreign Affairs Committee conducted a hearing to assess the aftermath of the Biden administration's withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who oversaw the withdrawal in 2021, expressed regret. Milley explained that though the US tried to help Afghanistan over the twenty-year span, they could not create a nation. Gold Star families of the thirteen US soldiers killed at the Abbey Gate bombing were present during the hearing. Milley recognized the families and their service member's sacrifice. General Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie, who was the top U.S. general in the Middle East during the withdrawal, also testified and echoed Milley's sentiments that the final withdrawal was delayed too long and was a failure of execution.

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