Amid rising concerns on internal security situation and the possibility of a civil war in Afghanistan, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday said that most British soldiers have been pulled out of the country. However, the PM didn’t mention the complete schedule of the withdrawal of British troops.
“All British troops assigned to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan are now returning home,” Johnson informed the UK parliament in a statement, news agency Reuters reported. “For obvious reasons, I will not disclose the timetable of our departure, though I can tell the house (parliament) that most of our personnel have already left,” he further said, hinting that many soldiers had already left Afghanistan.
Britain, one of the NATO allies, has been part of the war in Afghanistan which began after the September 11 attacks (9/11 attacks) in the United States. So far, 457 British Soldiers have lost their lives in the ongoing war of over two decades since 2001, according to a report by the Reuters.
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Johnson further said that the UK would continue to provide development assistance to Afghanistan. “I hope no one will leap to the false conclusion that the withdrawal of our forces somehow means the end of Britain’s commitment to Afghanistan, we are not about to turn away, nor are we under any illusions about the perils of today situation and what might lie ahead,” his statement to the parliament further said, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff Nick Carter said it was “plausible” that Afghanistan’s state could collapse after the pull-out of international troops from the country, following Johnson’s statement.
Carter also warned that a civil war, like in the 1990s, was possible “where you would see a culture of warlordism and you might see some of the important institutions like security forces fracturing along ethnic, or for that matter, tribal lines,” Reuters reported. “If that were to happen, I guess the Taliban would control part of the country. But, of course, they would not control all of the country,” he further said.
US President Joe Biden in April ordered the complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by September 11 and the Pentagon had earlier said that the process is 90% completed.
