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Pentagon orders remaining active-duty troops to leave Washington area

06 June 2020 08:22 (UTC +04:00)

The Pentagon will be sending back the remaining 900 active-duty troops who were sent to the Washington, D.C., area to potentially respond to civil unrest, and they are expected to start heading back to their home bases, a U.S. official told, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The official said on condition of anonymity that U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper had made the decision and the troops would be heading back to Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Drum in New York.

While the troops were in the National Capital Region, they were not deployed to Washington and were on standby in case they were needed.

On Thursday, the Pentagon ordered about 700 active-duty troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to return to Fort Bragg.

The official said a decision was made to send them back because enough National Guard troops had arrived in the city.