More than 7,000 American troops will begin to return home within weeks, a U.S. official told The Wall Street Journal, which was the first to report on the Afghanistan pullout. Trump’s aim is to eventually withdraw all 14,000 troops in Afghanistan over the next several months, the Journal reported. Reports of the Afghanistan pullout come on the same day that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced he was resigning from the Trump administration in February. The decision was precipitated partly by Trump’s planned hasty withdrawal of troops in both Syria and Afghanistan. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) immediately criticized the Afghanistan pullout, seeing it as “paving the way toward a second 9/11.”

Source: Huffington Post December 21, 2018 04:41 UTC