Pentagon hires new advisor to rush US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan

(Karachi) New acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller has appointed a senior advisor who favours quick removal of US troops in Afghanistan, American media has reported.

As per details, the Pentagon has hired Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor as a Senior Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense. MacGregor possesses years long military experience and hw will assist in implementing America’s national security priorities.

Macgregor has on many occasions in the past supported the fact that the United States should pull its forces from conflicts in the Middle East.

In an interview to Fox News in 2019, Macgregor said he would advise the president to get out of Afghanistan "as soon as possible," including removing the US embassy from Kabul, and that talking to the Taliban was unnecessary.

Macgregor also said the US needs to pull its troops out of Syria immediately and America had no national interest there. He said, "We need to listen very carefully to the Iranians ... find out what their interests are and look for areas where we can cooperate" and that the US needs to "turn the operational control of the [Korean] Peninsula militarily over to President Moon and the Koreans."

In February this year, a deal was struck between the United States and the Taliban in which it was agreed that 5,000 Taliban prisoners will be released from Afghan prisons before peace talks between the militant group and the government.

On August 10, Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani issued a decree to release the final batch of prisoners demanded by the Taliban as a condition to move to peace talks.

Later, the Afghan government released the remaining Taliban prisoners, kicking of intra-Afghan peace talks. The peace process is underway amid violent attacks and clashes between the Afghan forces and militant groups that analysts claim is aimed to disrupt intra-Afghan talks.