Germany withdraws last contingent of its troops from Afghanistan

Berlin (Germany) June 30 (ANI): Germany has recently withdrawn the last contingent of its troops from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of mission in the country. A contingent of around 570 soldiers was called back from Afghanistan on Tuesday (local time) as the security situation deteriorates, reported DW.

Defence Minister A Kramp-Karrenbauer said, “This marks the end of a historic chapter – an intense deployment that has challenged and shaped us”.

Defence Minister also pledged to analyse the details of this mission and said “will discuss what was good, what was not good and what we’ve learned.”

Defence Minister took this to Twitter and thanked all the 150,000 men and women who have been a part of this mission since 2001 and paid tribute to soldiers who lost their lives during this mission. 59 German soldiers have been killed since 2001 in the course of their service in Afghanistan, DW reported.

The remaining troops were airlifted from northern Afghanistan on four military planes and will take a hiatus in Georgia’s Tbilisi before reaching Germany on Wednesday. Germany has ended its participation in NATO’s “Resolute Support” mission. Britain, Italy and Turkey also have a significant military presence as a part of this mission, DW reported.

Germany’s decision to pull the troops out came in April following the US President’s plan to call back troops by September 11 i.e; the 20th anniversary of Al-Qaeda attacks on the US. (ANI)