After Trump cleared the way for thousands more American troops to be sent to Afghanistan, Taliban in a warning reaction said Afghanistan will become the graveyard for the United States.
Taliban added America should choose an exit strategy “instead of continuing the war”.
“If America doesn’t withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, soon Afghanistan will become another graveyard for this superpower in the 21st century,” Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
Trump backtracked from his promise to rapidly end America’s longest war in his first formal address to the nation as commander-in-chief late Monday, though he did not offer specifics.
He said he had concluded “the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable”, leaving a vacuum that terrorists “would instantly fill”.
Trump also lambasted US ally Pakistan for offering safe haven to “agents of chaos”.
Mujahid said as long as there is one US soldier in Afghanistan, and they continue to impose war on Afghans, we will continue our jihad.
While Trump refused to offer detailed troop numbers, senior White House officials said he had already authorized his defense secretary to deploy up to 3,900 more troops to Afghanistan.
Earlier Mujahid had dismissed the strategy as vague and “nothing new”.
A senior Taliban commander said that Trump was just perpetuating the “arrogant behavior” of previous presidents such as George W. Bush.
“He is just wasting American soldiers. We know how to defend our country. It will not change anything. For generations we have fought this war, we are not scared, we are fresh and we will continue this war until our last breath,” the same source added.
He added that the statement proved the current Afghan government is a “US puppet”.
The insurgents signaled their intentions minutes after Trump spoke by claiming the US embassy in Kabul had been the target of a rocket attack late Monday.
The rocket landed in a field in the city’s diplomatic quarter, with no casualties reported.
