According to Gen. Austin Miller, the US commander in Afghanistan, some 2,000 US troops have left Afghanistan over the past year. This brought the level from around 14,000 to 12,000.



Officials were quick to note that this reduction wasn’t related to any specific withdrawal order, but just happenstance from various troop rotations coinciding with one another.



Whether that’s actually the case is unclear, as the US was engaged in a serious peace process for much of the year, and was on the brink of a peace deal that would’ve called for a full withdrawal.



There have even been recent reports that the US might be looking to get troop levels down in Afghanistan going forward, down to as low as 8,000 troops. Though such a decision has not been made, this gives them a bit of a head start on that.





Author: Jason Ditz Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz