German military wraps up Afghanistan training mission ahead of withdrawal

The German military in Afghanistan will finish training local forces on Friday and turn its attention to withdraw from the country, as the United States and NATO wrap up their mission after almost two decades, the defense ministry in Berlin said.

US President Joe Biden and the Western military alliance announced in mid-April that they will pull out the roughly 10,000 foreign troops still in Afghanistan by September 11.

Germany has the second-largest military contingent with about 1,100 troops.

Berlin had deployed more than 100,000 soldiers to Afghanistan over the past two decades, many of them serving more than one tour in the country.

Fifty-nine German troops died in Afghanistan, with 35 of them killed in combat or as a result of militant attacks, making it Germany’s deadliest military mission since World War 2.

Wrapping up the operation, Germany will have to redeploy the equivalent of around 800 containers of equipment such as armored vehicles, helicopters, weapons, and ammunition.