On Monday, it was reported that President Donald Trump is planning to slash the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by nearly half by the time he leaves office in January. On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that would be a dumb idea. The Pentagon has reportedly issued a notice to commanders to begin getting ready to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500. If that happens, Stoltenberg said, Afghanistan could once again become a “platform for international terrorists” to plan attacks, and that ISIS “could rebuild in Afghanistan the terror caliphate it lost in Syria and Iraq.” Stoltenberg also reminded Trump that the reason NATO troops went to Afghanistan in the first place was in support of the U.S. after 9/11 “to ensure that it would never again be a safe haven for international terrorists.”
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