US Preparing for Taliban Attacks as Afghanistan Drawdown Gets Under Way
Voice of America
PENTAGON - The United States is positioning more firepower in the Middle East and South Asia to provide cover for U.S. troops as they prepare to leave Afghanistan.
The Pentagon on Friday announced that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to remain in the region for "a period of time." Long-range bombers are also headed to the region, and two U.S. Air Force B-52s are already in place. "We want to make this a safe, orderly and deliberate drawdown," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters. "That means giving the commander on the ground … options to make sure that our forces and our troops and those of our allies are protected as they move out." U.S. President Joe Biden announced last week that he was pulling the approximately 2,500 to 3,500 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan beginning May 1, and that the withdrawal would be completed by early September.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.