The development comes a couple of weeks after a historic peace agreement that was signed between Washington and the Taliban to end the 19-year long bloodshed.
US official Colonel Sonny Leggett, while talking to media, said that hundreds of US troops have started to leave Afghanistan in accordance with the deal with the Taliban. “These soldiers will not be replaced as the American administration looks to decrease US troops in Afghanistan from 13,000 to 8,600,” said the official.
The troop withdrawal has been announced publicly, following a new political rift in Afghanistan that is set to rise once again between Ashraf Ghani, the newly-elected Afghan President, and Abdullah Abdullah. The two rival politicians held separate presidential oath taking ceremonies, each refusing to recognise the other and claiming the right to the presidentship.
The next step of the historical peace agreement is an intra-Afghan dialogue through which the Taliban and Afghanistan stakeholders will try to figure out a power-sharing formula to ensure the smooth withdrawal of US and peace in the country.
Analysts have claimed that the current tensions between Abdullah and Ghani can threaten the fragile peace agreement and shatter dreams of peace prevailing in Afghanistan after almost two decades.