Obama Announces Drawdown from Afghanistan

U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

Afghan President Hamd Karzai announced on Thursday that the youth of his country would step up to defend the country as the American troops are getting ready to pull out after a 10-year occupation which, according to many, was ineffective, in spite of the fact that many leaders of Al-Qaeda, including the supreme one, Osama Bin Laden, considered the mastermind behind the tragic event known as 9/11, were eliminated.

Karzai’s statement comes after the drawdown plan laid out by President Barack Obama on Wednesday, according to which 38,000 troops are to leave Afghanistan by September 2012, leaving 68,000 more to be pulled out in the years to come.

Taliban

Obama’s plan was followed by the statement of his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, who announced that a slow withdrawal of the French troops will also occur, starting with 4,000 troops that are to leave first.

Karzai thanked the international coalition for their efforts to preserve the country in one piece, and added that the Afghan security forces would take it from here.

He did admit though that the Afghan military must be strengthened in order to face the challenges that lie ahead.

Karzai became more and more critical of the American-led coalition’s actions in Afghanistan, after their drone and night-conducted attacks killed innocent people and angered the tribal leaders.

The Taliban on the other hand said their attacks would be more and more aggressive and called the American plan to pull out a simple symbolic gesture.