The nation’s prime consultant to Afghanistan mentioned Tuesday that he doesn’t believe the Afghan authorities will collapse after U.S. and overseas troops leave the war-torn nation later this 12 months.

“I don’t believe the federal government goes to break down or the Taliban goes to take over,” U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad mentioned throughout testimony earlier than the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Khalilzad’s testimony comes after President Biden announced the U.S. would full their troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on September 11, successfully ending America’s longest warfare.

The determination to leave Afghanistan has triggered an array of reactions in Washington, with lawmakers on either side of the aisle lauding and criticizing the transfer. It has additionally triggered some concern with the best echelons of the army.

Last week, the top of U.S. forces within the Middle East told lawmakers he was involved that the Afghan army will collapse after U.S. and overseas troops leave the war-torn nation.

“I’m involved in regards to the means of the Afghan army to carry on after we leave, the power of the Afghan Air Force to fly, specifically, after we take away the assist for these plane,” McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, mentioned throughout a Senate Armed Services committee listening to on April 22.

Afghan forces, he mentioned, have gotten used to the assist from U.S. and different nations’ militaries over a number of years.

Later on the Pentagon, McKenzie told reporters that whereas the U.S. will proceed to assist Afghanistan from afar, he was significantly involved about plane upkeep.

The machines are maintained largely by contractors from the U.S. and different nations, he defined. The U.S. intends to seek out revolutionary methods of changing these providers in a means that would not contain boots on the bottom, he added.