KABUL—U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin landed in Afghanistan Sunday for an unannounced, daylong visit, the first senior-level trip here by the new administration as President Joe Biden faces a May deadline to decide whether to withdraw remaining U.S. troops from the country.
Austin, who oversaw the large-scale withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 as an Army general, visited Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace and spoke with top U.S. military officials, which the Pentagon chief said was a listening visit that would inform the administration’s ongoing review of Afghan policy.
