Bigger India
India Waits For Details On US Cut-back In Afghanistan
The Trump administration has decided to withdraw 7,000 of 14,000 American troops from Afghanistan, from America’s longest war yet at 17 years. But there has been no official announcement and, as the New Delhi source pointed out “not even a tweet” from President Donald Trump
As abrupt as the Trump administration’s decision was to halve the number of American troops in Afghanistan by half, India has been prepared for an “eventual” cut-back or pull-out for a long time now and would like to know the nature and time frame of the reduction to assess implications for its involvement.
There has been no formal response from India to the US decision yet. But people in the know in New Delhi said that assuming the Trump administration had indeed taken a call — “but, just to be clear, there has been no tweet or announcement as about the Syrian pullout” — India would want to see which US troops are being pulled out, those involved in counter-terrorism or those advising Afghan combat troops, or both.