US President Joe Biden has said that the United States will continue to support the people of Afghanistan, in a statement marking the second anniversary of the US military withdrawal from the country.
In the statement published on the White House website on Wednesday, Biden said that the US is the largest single donor of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
He praised the sacrifice of US service members who fought in Afghanistan, saying that 2,461 service members were killed and 20,744 were wounded during the two-decade war.
“These service members dared all, risked all, and gave all to our nation. We owe them and their families a debt we can never fully repay,” Biden said.
President Biden also praised the US military members, diplomats, intelligence professionals, and development specialists who worked together to advance the US’s Afghanistan mission for two decades and conducted the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Together, they helped evacuate approximately 120,000 people in one of the largest airlifts in history.”
President Biden has thanked the US citizens and local governments for welcoming more than 117,000 Afghan refugees to the United States.
“Just as they contributed to our mission in Afghanistan for twenty years, our Afghan allies are now making vast contributions across our nation. And, just as they stood with us, I remain committed to standing with them,” part of the statement reads.
Biden has urged the US Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would provide a pathway to permanent legal status for Afghan refugees.
Following the US withdrawal in August 2021, Afghanistan’s republic government collapsed and the Taliban swiftly returned to power. During the evacuation process in August 2021, a suicide attack outside the Kabul International Airport killed 13 US service members along with approximately 170 citizens of Afghanistan.
Biden and his administration have been widely criticized over the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, leading to the takeover of the Taliban.
Recently, a Republican member of the US Congress, Cory Mills, introduced a motion to impeach the country’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, over the chaotic withdrawal.
Last month, the Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, criticized Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal as a “mistake of epic proportions” and an “unconditional surrender to the Taliban.”
