Will continue to support allies, proud to have welcomed 115,000 Afghans: US

Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, marking the conclusion of two years since the end of the war in Afghanistan, has said that the US will "continue to push to help resettle our Afghan allies".

"We remain deeply committed to supporting the Afghan allies who fought by our sides and to helping those who are now building new lives outside their troubled homeland. We will continue to push to help resettle our Afghan allies, and I am proud that we have welcomed more than 115,000 Afghans who stood by our side to the United States over the past two years," Austin said in an official statement on Thursday.

"As we mark two years since the conclusion of the US war in Afghanistan, we salute the valour, patriotism, and selflessness of the American service members and civilians who fought and served there over the course of 20 years," he said.

US soldiers finally left Afghanistan on August 30, 2021, a day before the deadline to wrap up operations in the country.

"Throughout America's longest war, our troops showed great courage and compassion. My thoughts today are with all of the brave Americans who answered the call to duty after al-Qaeda's terrorists attacked America-including the Pentagon itself-on September 11, 2001," Austin said.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has called it "the longest war in American history". He said that the US completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with over 1,20,000 people evacuated to safety.

"That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible. No nation - no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today," Biden said, according to the White House.

In the war's final days, the United States, along with its allies and partners, safely evacuated more than 1,24,000 civilians from Afghanistan, in the midst of the pandemic and in the teeth of danger, the official statement said.

The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021 and imposed policies severely restricting basic rights--particularly those of women and girls. They dismissed all women from leadership posts in the civil service and prohibited girls in most provinces from attending secondary school.

The Taliban have carried out broad censorship, limiting critical reporting, and have detained and beaten journalists, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). The Afghan economy collapsed after August 2021, as millions of people lost salaries when the US, World Bank, and other donors stripped the Central Bank of Afghanistan of its foreign assets and access to financial assistance.

Over 90 per cent of the Afghan population faces serious food insecurity, along with a lack of medicine and a rise in malnutrition-related diseases.