A collection of quotes on airpower and national security issues.
Taliban
The Taliban controls approximately half of all district centers in Afghanistan, but the Afghan military is consolidating its forces to protect population centers and the “endgame” is not yet written, the U.S. military’s top general said July 21. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ...
The Pentagon will honor a request from the State Department to initially house at least 2,500 Afghan interpreters and their families at Fort Lee, Va., to escape possible retribution from the Taliban. President Joe Biden has said the interpreters, and others who helped U.S. forces ...
Afghanistan’s American-trained, equipped, and financed military has lost dozens of provinces to the Taliban in “tactical retreats” in the 10 weeks since the U.S. began its withdrawal, but an Afghan government official promised July 13 that his country would not succumb to the Taliban rebels ...
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is almost complete after American forces abruptly left the largest operating base in the country July 1, a move the Pentagon said was needed because of operational security. As of July 5, 90 percent of the withdrawal had been completed, ...
Looters were left to enter and take what remained of Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan after U.S. forces withdrew July 1 without fanfare or an official announcement. As American forces vacated Bagram, so, too, did close air support to the Afghan forces fighting the Taliban. In ...
The crew of an AC-130J on June 22 received Distinguished Flying Crosses and Air Medals for protecting helicopters evacuating wounded American and Afghan forces during a September 2019 fight in Afghanistan. The Ghostrider, callsign Shadow 71, provided about two hours of constant close air support ...
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan continues on pace, and though Taliban violence has increased—with the group taking more districts from the Kabul-based government—there are no plans to slow the drawdown yet. U.S. Central Command said June 22 that more than 50 percent of the withdrawal ...
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on June 10 would not say whether the U.S. military will still conduct airstrikes in Afghanistan to defend population centers after the retrograde completes this summer, but the Pentagon is pursuing ways to base surveillance and strike aircraft closer ...
The number of troops deployed to Afghanistan could increase in the coming months to enable the full withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces, a DOD spokesman said, and it is too early to tell what the remaining contractor presence will be to continue support for ...
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will begin on May 1 and finish before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, to allow the American military time to focus more on global terror and increasing threats from China, President Joe Biden said. During a March 14 address formally ...
U.S. forces will leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11—the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Biden administration officials said. President Joe Biden is expected to formally announce the plan on April 14. The new deadline is not "conditions based," ...
