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Abstract
After having almost five rounds of recent talks with the Taliban the US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad foresees that the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan will be accomplished in years. His statement refuted the media reports that US will withdraw its forces in one and a half year. During the recent talks the Taliban set six months deadline for its often-repeated demand of the US forces withdrawal from Afghanistan. The drawdown of the US forces is not new but has always remained the core demand of the Taliban. This was June 2011 when the U.S announced a major news: the withdrawal of the U.S troops from Afghanistan. This announcement might have rejoiced tax-payers in U.S, but the decision has huge regional implications, especially for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the site for the global war on terror since 2001. Due to lack of political instability owing to global militarization, the economic situations in both the countries are alarming. Similarly, due to a collosal damage to both lives and property in the region, Pakistan-Afghanistan. Given this alarming situation, this study not only looks into this situation of uncertainty but also offers remedial measures to see how the situation could be improved. Though the United States had announced pulling out its troops from Afghanistan till the end of 2014, yet it is still not clear if the U.S could afford to pull out all its troops due to worsening security situation in the country. Whatever, minimum pull out was carried out by the Obama administration, the Donald Trump administration dubbed it 'a hast withdrawal ' that left deep impacts on every aspect of life particularly security. In view of this prevailing confusion, this paper using the in-depth interviews with concerned field experts, to explore the possible challenges and options/prospects of Afghanistan beyond 2014.
Keywords: US, NATO, Afghanistan, ANSF, ANA, Drawdown, Challenges, Opportunities
Introduction
The 9/11 terrorist attacks on Pentagon and World Trade Center were far more shocking and devastative as compared to the bombings on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. For both these attacks the Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was held responsible but the fear of vulnerability to such more attacks spread a wave of shock in the US. The then...