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December 15, 2019The Trump administration will announce this week its intention to withdraw about 4,000 soldiers from Afghanistan. A number of US media reports, including CNN, which citing a person in charge, reports how the announcement could come precisely this week but that "the timing can change".

Talks between the United States and the Taliban resumed in Qatar a week ago, on December 7, but were suspended by the US Thursday after an attack near the US air base in Bagram in Afghanistan, whose budget was two civilians dead and dozens of injured. Currently, 13,000 US troops are deployed in Afghanistan, 18 years after the outbreak of US intervention, launched a few weeks after the September 11th 2001 attacks to overthrow the Taliban regime that sheltered Al-Qaeda.

The NBC, citing three current and former US officials as sources, reports that the Trump administration intends to announce the withdrawal of 4 thousand soldiers: two of the sources believe that some soldiers will be redeployed, while others will simply not be replaced at the end of their mission . No comment from the government: the State Department has not responded to a request for confirmation made by AFP, while the Pentagon has postponed the questions to the White House, which has not released comments. The numbers, however, are in line with the figures that had previously circulated: last month Trump announced that he intended to reduce the overall presence to 8,600 soldiers, with further possible reductions.

A draft agreement almost reached in early September provided for the start of a progressive withdrawal of US soldiers, the main claim of the Taliban. In exchange, the latter had to commit themselves not to let terrorists act from Afghanistan and to begin an unprecedented dialogue with the Kabul government. Last month the US president insisted on the need for a ceasefire and made a surprise visit to the Bagram base on November 28, meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The Republican, who announced the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria, intends to reduce the number of deployments of soldiers abroad as much as possible.