General Mark Milley, head of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the two calls that he had made to his Chinese counterparts in the final weeks of the Trump administration were a normal part of his job and were coordinated with the acting defence secretary and other senior officials.

There were fears that former president Donald Trump could start a war with China. That was the context of the call in October 2020. Then a second call took place two days after the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

“I know, I am certain, President Trump did not intend on attacking the Chinese, and it is my directed responsibility to convey presidential orders and intent,” Milley told the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday, referring to a call he had made on October 30, 2020.

“My job at that time was to de-escalate,” Milley said, adding that “at secretary of defence [Mark] Esper’s direction, I made a call to General Li on October 30. Eight people sat in the call with me, and I read out the call within about 30 minutes of the call ending”.

Milley also told lawmakers at the hearing that there’s a need to “fully examine” the role played by Pakistan in granting sanctuary to Afghan players, echoing US secretary of state Antony Blinken who recently said that ties with Islamabad, a major non-Nato ally (MNNA) of the US, were being reviewed because of its role in Afghanistan.

“We need to fully examine the role of Pakistan sanctuary,” Milley said on the US decision to pull out of Afghanistan. The US general brought up Pakistan’s role in the context of factors that turned Afghanistan into America’s longest war.

Milley said the Taliban “remains a terrorist organisation” that hasn’t broken ties with Al-Qaeda. He warned that a reconstituted Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan with aspirations to attack the United States was “a very real possibility” – perhaps in as little as a year.

He called the 20-year war in Afghanistan a “strategic failure” and said he believes the US should have kept several thousand troops in the country to prevent the Taliban takeover that happened faster than predicted.

Also testifying at Tuesday’s hearing was US defence secretary Lloyd Austin. He defended the Afghan evacuation process as “the largest airlift conducted in US history”, but conceded there were problems. “Was it perfect? Of course not.”

Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, especially the sanctuary enjoyed on its territory by the Taliban and Haqqani Network operatives, has come under fresh scrutiny. Some lawmakers want Pakistan’s status as an MNNA to be rescinded.

A new report by the Congressional Research Service says Pakistan continues to serve as the “base of operation and/or target” of 15 terror groups including the Taliban and the Haqqani Network that are ruling Afghanistan now, and five that have been focused on India.

The report warns of “a resurgence of regional terrorism and militancy” in the wake of the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in Kabul, 20 years after they were toppled by a US-led offensive. The India-centred groups on the list are Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, which were behind most terror attacks in recent years. The three others are Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

With inputs from agencies