KABUL: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Thursday to sell Afghan leaders and a wary public on President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all American troops from the country and end America’s longest-running war.
Blinken was meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, and civic figures, a day after Biden announced that the remaining 2,500 US soldiers in Afghanistan would be coming home by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that led to the US invasion.
His trip also came after NATO immediately followed suit, saying its roughly 7,000 non-American forces in Afghanistan would be departing within a few months, ending the foreign military presence that had been a fact of life for a generation of Afghans already reeling from more than 40 years of conflict.
Blinken sought to reassure the Afghan leadership that the withdrawal did not mean an end to the US-Afghan relationship.
“I wanted to demonstrate with my visit the ongoing to commitment of the United States to the Islamic Republic and the people of Afghanistan,” Blinken told Ghani as they met at the presidential palace in Kabul. “The partnership is changing, but the partnership itself is enduring.”
“We respect the decision and are adjusting our priorities,” Ghani told Blinken, expressing gratitude for the sacrifices of US troops.
Blinken arrived in the Afghan capital from Brussels where he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin briefed NATO officials on the move and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg announced the alliance would also be leaving.
Biden, Blinken, Austin and Stoltenberg have all sought to put a brave face on the pullout, maintaining that the US- and NATO-led missions to Afghanistan had achieved their goal of decimating Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network that launched the 9/11 attacks and clearing the country of terrorist elements that could use Afghan soil to plot similar strikes.
However, that argument has faced pushback from some U.S, lawmakers and human rights advocates who say the withdrawal will result in the loss of freedoms that Afghans enjoyed after the Taliban was ousted from power in late 2001.
Later, in a meeting with Abdullah, Blinken repeated his message, saying that “we have a new chapter, but it is a new chapter that we’re writing together.”
“We are grateful to your people, your country, your administration,” Abdullah said.
Despite billions of US dollars in aid, Afghanistan 20 years on has a poverty rate of 52 percent according to World Bank figures. That means more than half of Afghanistan’s 36 million people live on less than $1.90 a day. Afghanistan is also considered one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman according to the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security.
For many Afghans the past two decades have been disappointing, as corruption has overtaken successive governments and powerful warlords have amassed wealth and loyal militias who are well armed. Many Afghans fear worsening chaos even more once America leaves.
Peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government are at a stalemate but are supposed to resume later this month in Istanbul.
Under an agreement signed between the Trump administration and the Taliban last year, the US was to have completed its military withdrawal by May 1. Although Biden is blowing through that deadline, angering the Taliban leadership, his plan calls for the pull-out to begin on May 1. The NATO withdrawal will commence the same day.
“It is time to end America’s longest war,” Biden said in his announcement in Washington on Tuesday, but he added that the US will “not conduct a hasty rush to the exit.”
“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” said Biden, who delivered his address from the White House Treaty Room, the same location where President George W. Bush announced the start of the war. “I am now the fourth United States president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth.”
Biden, along with Blinken and Austin in Brussels, vowed that the US would remain committed to Afghanistan’s people and development.
“Bringing our troops home does not mean ending our relationship with Afghanistan or our support for the country,” Blinken said. “Our support, our engagement and our determination remain.”
Austin also said that the US military, after withdrawing from Afghanistan, will keep counterterrorism “capabilities” in the region to keep pressure on extremist groups operating within Afghanistan. Asked for details, he declined to elaborate on where those US forces would be positioned or in what numbers.
Blinken in unannounced visit to Afghanistan to sell US troop withdrawal
https://arab.news/6js69
Blinken in unannounced visit to Afghanistan to sell US troop withdrawal
- NATO says its roughly 7,000 non-American forces in Afghanistan are also departing within a few months
Millions of Indian girls out of school as efforts to keep them enrolled falter
- Government data shows 6.57 million Indian children dropped out from school between 2019 and 2025
- For girls, main reasons are child marriage, family migration and inadequate infrastructure, experts say
NEW DELHI: Priyanka Sau was sure that after completing secondary school she would enroll in a computer course in her hometown in Uttar Pradesh.
But neither the course nor her graduation could materialize as two years ago her father lost his job at a brick kiln and the family moved to Delhi in search of work. The 15-year-old now works as a cleaner in a housing complex, supplementing her parents’ income and helping support her three younger sisters.
Her marriage arrangement has been finalized, too.
“Very soon it will be formalized,” she told Arab News.
“For me, there was no option but to follow my parents to Delhi and start earning to make a living ... I miss my school and dream to enroll in a computer course to get modern skills.”
Priyanka is one of the 6.57 million Indian children who dropped out from school between 2019 and 2025, according to data presented in parliament in December by Women and Child Development Minister Savitri Thakur.
Nearly 3 million of the whole dropout group were adolescent girls, with the highest rates recorded in the most populous states. In Uttar Pradesh, girls accounted for more than half of nearly 100,000 school dropouts in the 2025–26 academic year alone.
Dr. Kriti Bharati, founder of Saarthi Trust, which works for child rights and rescues victims of child marriage, said the government data was “alarming” and required immediate intervention.
“The education department should go deep into it. They should find out where these thousands of girls who dropped out have gone ... The schoolteachers, when they come to know that some girls or kids have dropped, they should find out why they are dropping out. This is their social responsibility,” she said.
“A developed society is called developed not because it has better roads or it can send missions to the moon. It has to ensure education for its people, it has to ensure proper care for its poor citizens.”
The government data showed that social protection systems were failing to adapt to local realities, as dropout rates rise due to pressures such as domestic responsibilities, work, early marriage and poverty.
According to Dr. Bharati, the main reasons forcing girls to leave school were child marriage and labor migration, which has increased since the COVID pandemic.
“Poor people move from one place to another. After COVID, many things have changed as far as jobs are concerned. People are moving for jobs outside their villages,” she said.
“The third reason is child labor — these girls become a source of income for their family. They supplement the income.”
For Dr. Purujit Praharaj, director of India Child Protection, the main reasons enabling the increase in dropout rates, especially among girls, were systemic: inadequate infrastructure and legal guarantees.
The Right to Education Act makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right only for children aged 6 to 14, while access-wise, secondary schools in rural areas are often far, especially in India’s poorer, eastern states.
“All girls below 18 should be given free and compulsory education and proper infrastructure. If the schools are not located nearby, then hostel facilities should be provided,” Dr. Praharaj said.
“There is a safety issue and concern among the parents to send their girls to a different location to school ... Residential schools need to be built for these girls so that they can go there. If you can ensure continuous education for them, girls will not get married before 18.”
