Ahead of a deal with the Taliban, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States will always have intelligence in Afghanistan.
Speaking at a press conference in India, Trump said that the US will bring down the number of its troops in Afghanistan to 8,600. “From there we will make a decision as to what the final outcome would be,” he said.
“We will always have intelligence there, we will have other things there,” Trump said. “We want to watch the area, the area is a hotbed of problems.”
The deal is expected to be signed on February 29 following the ongoing seven-day reduction in violence.
“We have two days now under our belt without violence or I guess a minimum of violence and we will see what happens,” Trump said.
He said that the peace deal with the Taliban is supported by all.
“Everybody is happy about it… because we have been there for 19 years and everybody would like to see it happen,” Trump said, suggesting the role of US forces in Afghanistan were serving as law enforcement agency
Trump, however, warned that “when we bring them (US troops) home, we will let them (militants) know that if something happens, we will hit them so hard.”
“We can win that easily if I wanted to kill millions of people. I don’t want to kill millions of people,” Trump said.
