US Withdrawal From Afghanistan Expected Despite Counterinsurgency Needs

There is still a need to fight the insurgency in Afghanistan despite US plans to fully withdraw troops by the end of 2016, Afghanistan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah’s deputy spokesman Javid Faisal told Sputnik.

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik), Leandra Bernstein — In recent months, Afghanistan has faced a resurgent Taliban and a growing presence of Islamic State fighters in multiple parts of the country. Afghan authorities have also raised concerns over neighboring Pakistan’s role in harboring insurgents.

"We see that there still is need of more work to fight [the] insurgency," Faisal said on Tuesday. "We still need more efforts to tackle terrorism and still more work is needed to work on this problem."

The spokesman’s comments came after Chief Executive Abdullah’s remarks to the UN General Assembly on Monday calling for the international community to pay more attention to the global issue of terrorism.

President Barack Obama, however, continues to support the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by the end of his term in office in 2016. Earlier this year, Obama promised Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that the United States would keep 10,000 troops in the country through the end of 2015.

The Afghan government would prefer troop withdrawal on the basis of "condition than timing," Faisal said, emphasizing that the Afghan government will respect any decision on troop levels determined by the US government.