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US troops have left Afghanistan. https:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/policy\/2021\/07\/fighter-jets-leave-afghanistan-us-departs-bagram\/183068\/<\/a><\/p>\n While we are withdrawing after 20 years of occupying the base we built at Bagram, and the original reason for going there (the 9\/11\/2001 attacks) have faded from the memories of most people, we will still have a small presence there in Kabul. And yes, al Qaeda are still active in the region.<\/p>\n From the article:\u00a0 Departing U.S. forces turned over <\/a>Bagram Airfield, a massive base that had been at the center of military operations there since 2001. But questions<\/a> remain about how the United States will support its post-war military and diplomatic presence in the country.<\/p>\n U.S. force presence now will be centered around Kabul. The few remaining U.S. military aircraft will be located there, as will other U.S. forces, to secure the primary transit point for U.S. personnel and potentially thousands of Afghan translators who worked with the U.S. military over the last two decades and who are seeking <\/a>to flee the country.<\/p>\n \u201cSecurity at the airport is still a concern,\u201d Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said at a briefing Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some aviation elements<\/a> that we retained at [Kabul] airport, but in terms of the kinds of the strike capabilities I think\u00a0 you are talking about, those are no longer in Afghanistan,\u201d Kirby said, responding to a question on whether the aircraft that had been based at Bagram were still in the country.\u00a0– article<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Taliban (seeing this as a triumph, no doubt) have announced that all foreign troops must be gone from Afghanistan.\u00a0 https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-57714808<\/a><\/p>\n From the article:\u00a0 Any foreign troops left in Afghanistan after NATO’s September withdrawal deadline will be at risk as occupiers, the Taliban has told the BBC.<\/strong><\/p>\n It comes amid reports that 1,000 mainly US troops could remain on the ground to protect diplomatic missions and Kabul’s international airport.<\/p>\n NATO\u2019s 20-year military mission in Afghanistan has all but ended.<\/p>\n But violence in the country continues to rise, with the Taliban taking more territory.<\/p>\n Under a deal with the militant group, the US and its Nato allies agreed to withdraw all troops in return for a commitment by the Taliban not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.<\/p>\n President Joe Biden set a deadline of 11 September – the 20-year anniversary of the 9\/11 attacks on the US – for American troops to fully withdraw, but reports suggest the pullout may be complete within days. – article<\/p>\n Fine by me. 20 years of babysitting, and losing good troops to mines and ambushes and bullets over there, while the Taliban see it as their turf to re-establish their \u201csupremacy\u201d, have resulted in \u2013 well, withdrawal. NATO wanted the US military there.<\/p>\n We went, we saw, we engaged, and we are now going home. We need to focus on whether or not Xi Jinping wants a dustup over Taiwan. Nothing has changed over in that place since long before Rome was founded. In fact, nothing has changed since the beginning of the Bronze Age started in 2000BC.<\/p>\n Anyone besides me wondering how many military retirees will be leaving AD now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US troops have left Afghanistan. https:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/policy\/2021\/07\/fighter-jets-leave-afghanistan-us-departs-bagram\/183068\/ While we are withdrawing after 20 years of occupying the … Well, Bye….<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[301,474],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-al-qaeda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115228,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115226\/revisions\/115228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}