Britain ends combat role in Afghanistan, last US Marines hand over base

[Bosonic]

Source: Reuters

British troops ended their combat operations in Afghanistan on Sunday as they and U.S. Marines handed over two huge adjacent bases to the Afghan military, 13 years after a U.S.-led invasion launched the long and costly war against the Taliban.

Their coming departure leaves Afghanistan and its newly installed president, Ashraf Ghani, to deal almost unaided with an emboldened Taliban insurgency after the last foreign combat troops withdraw by year-end.

At the U.S. Camp Leatherneck and Britain's Camp Bastion, which lie next to each other in the southwestern province of Helmand, troops lowered the American and British flags for the final time on Sunday and folded them away. The timing of their withdrawal has not been announced for security reasons.

Camp Leatherneck, the largest U.S. base to be handed over to Afghan control, and Camp Bastion together formed the international coalition's regional headquarters for the southwest of Afghanistan, housing up to 40,000 military personnel and civilian contractors.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/26/us-afghanistan-troopwithdrawal-idUSKBN0IF06I20141026

[riversedge]

1. seems so anti-climatic right now

with our involvement with ISSA mission.

[newfie11]

2. They will probably be back

That's seems they way things go now days.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. But DU said that they would be there forever. nt

[candelista]

4. $1 trillion and thousands of casualties for nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. But still, 10,000 troops remain for the next decade, right?

[candelista]

6. Yes, until 2024.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/30/us-troops-afghanistan-2024-obama-bilateral-security-agreement

From the article:

The entry into force of the deal ensures that Barack Obama, elected president in 2008 on a wave of anti-war sentiment, will pass off both the Afghanistan war and his new war in Iraq and Syria to his successor. In 2010, his vice-president, Joe Biden, publicly vowed the US would be “totally out” of Afghanistan “come hell or high water, by 2014.”

Obama called Tuesday “a historic day” for the US and Afghanistan, as the security pact, which puts US troops beyond the reach of Afghan law, “will help advance our shared interests and the long-term security of Afghanistan.”

[jtuck004]

7. It still won't be over...in many ways.

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