Tag Archives: Afghanistan

Afghanistan will never again be militant sanctuary: U.S. ambassador

U.S. soldiers take part in a memorial ceremony to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Kabul, Afghanistan September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

By Josh Smith

KABUL (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said on Monday Washington would never allow militants to use the country as a sanctuary, as American and allied troops in Kabul commemorated the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump in August committed nearly 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as part of an open-ended campaign against Taliban insurgents who have made advances in recent years.

A U.S. led intervention sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks toppled the Taliban government in 2001. Since then more than 2,400 American troops and more than 1,000 international allies have died in Afghanistan.

“Today we remember how this conflict began but let us also remember how this must end, with Afghanistan never again serving as an ungoverned space, sanctuary or base for those who are bent on attacking us and our allies,” ambassador Hugo Llorens told a crowd of soldiers at the NATO coalition’s headquarters in Kabul.

The United states would also “completely annihilate” Islamic State militants in the region, Llorens said.

The Taliban on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that wounded several NATO troops and Afghan civilians in a province north Kabul.

(Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

U.S. to send 3,500 additional troops to Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Marines walk inside their base after they are back from training with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers in Helmand province, Afghanistan July 6, 2017. REUTERS/ Omar Sobhani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will send about 3,500 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, a figure broadly in line with expectations as the United States boosts support for the Afghan military.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, comes as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General Joseph Dunford hold closed door briefings with members of Congress about President Donald Trump’s regional strategy.

The Pentagon said it would not comment on additional troop numbers until Mattis makes an announcement.

If confirmed, it would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 14,500.

After a months-long review of his Afghanistan policy, Trump committed the United States last week to an open-ended conflict in the country and promised a stepped-up campaign against Taliban insurgents.

Last week Mattis said he had signed orders to send additional troops to Afghanistan but did not specify the size of the force, saying he first needed to brief Congress.

U.S. officials have for months told Reuters that Trump had given Mattis the authority to send about 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

The U.S. presence in Afghanistan peaked at more than 100,000 troops in 2011, when Washington was under domestic political pressure to draw down the costly operation.

Some U.S. officials have told Reuters they questioned the benefit of sending more troops to Afghanistan because any politically palatable number would not be enough to turn the tide, much less create stability and security.

To date, more than 2,300 Americans have been killed and over 17,000 wounded in Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Bill Trott)

Australian military probes ‘rumors’ of possible war crimes in Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: The rear gunner of an Australian Chinook transport chopper mans a heavy machine gun during a low flight over the Arghandab valley in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, May 3, 2010. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

cThe Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported in July on an alleged cover-up of the killing of an Afghan boy as well as hundreds of pages of leaked defense force documents relating to the secretive operations of the country’s special forces.

On Friday, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force released a statement saying it was conducting an inquiry “into rumors of possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict” by Australian troops in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

“The inquiry would like anyone who has information regarding possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict by Australian forces in Afghanistan, or rumors of them, to contact the inquiry,” the statement read.

Australia is not a member of NATO but is a staunch U.S. ally and has had troops in Afghanistan since 2002.

As recently as May, Australia recommitted to the 16-year-long, seemingly intractable war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants by sending an additional 30 troops to Afghanistan to join the NATO-led training and assistance mission.

That brought Australia’s total Afghan deployment to 300 troops.

(Reporting by Joseph Hinchliffe; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Mattis signs orders to send additional troops to Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis looks on during a bilateral meeting with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-Moo at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Thursday he had signed deployment orders to send additional troops to Afghanistan but did not specify the size of the force.

“Yes, I have signed orders but it is not complete. In other words I have signed some of the (orders for) troops that will go and we are identifying the specific ones,” Mattis told reporters.

Mattis declined to comment on how many additional troops were included in the orders, but U.S. officials have told Reuters that President Donald Trump has given Mattis the authority to send about 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

“It is more advisers, it is more enablers, fire support, for example,” Mattis said. He added that no additional troops had moved in yet and could take a “couple of days.”

After a months-long review of his Afghanistan policy, Trump committed the United States last week to an open-ended conflict in the country and promised a stepped-up campaign against Afghan Taliban insurgents.

The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated for the United States and Afghan government over the past few years.

The Afghan government was assessed by the U.S. military to control or influence almost 60 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts as of Feb. 20, a nearly 11 percentage-point decrease from the same time in 2016, according to data released by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

About 11,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, thousands more than it has previously stated.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by James Dalgleish and Alistair Bell)

Kabul mosque attack: four-year-old called to safety

Ali Ahmad, 4, sits with his father as they pose for a photograph at their house after he survived a suicide attack at a mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan August 27, 2017.

By Sayed Hassib

KABUL (Reuters) – A four-year-old boy photographed in a Kabul mosque last week as police desperately tried to call him to safety during an attack by Islamic State gunmen is back with his family but still suffering nightmares, his father said.

Ali Ahmad was with his grandfather in the Shi’ite Imam Zaman mosque on Friday when at least two attackers in police uniforms stormed in, one exploding a suicide-bomb vest and the other firing indiscriminately at the hundreds of worshippers inside.

A picture by Reuters photographer Omar Sobhani showed Ali standing alone in the courtyard of the mosque as policemen taking cover behind a doorway called and waved to him. He survived the attack but his grandfather was among at least 20 killed.

Afghan policemen try to rescue four-year-old Ali Ahmad at the site of a suicide attack followed by a clash between Afghan forces and insurgents after an attack on a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 25, 2017.

Afghan policemen try to rescue four-year-old Ali Ahmad at the site of a suicide attack followed by a clash between Afghan forces and insurgents after an attack on a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

Sayed Bashir, Ali’s father, was nearby but not in the mosque for the initial blast and ran to check on his family.

“Right after the explosion I thought everything was finished,” he said. “I called my father’s mobile phone number and my son answered and said: ‘They killed grandpa’. He wanted me to bring the car and get him.”

“We were running everywhere in search of my son but the police were stopping us and didn’t let us get close,” Bashir said.

Bashir called the number again and was speaking to Ali when another explosion went off.

“I lost hope. I said to myself that everything was finished. I tried the number again but it was switched off,” Bashir said.

In fact, Ali had run around behind the mosque, disregarding the policeman frantically signaling to him in the courtyard. He was rescued soon afterwards but the effects of the attack may take much longer to heal.

Bashir, a building worker who lives in a district with many Shi’ite families, said Ali was still traumatized and having difficulty coming to terms with what happened.

“After the incident, my son has some problems. He’s scared a lot at night,” he said.

The attack, the latest in a series targeting Shi’ite mosques, was claimed by Islamic State Khorasan, the local branch of the group which takes the name of an old region that included what is now Afghanistan.

According to the United Nations, at least 62 civilians have been killed and 119 injured in six separate attacks on Shi’ite mosques this year.

 

(Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Robin Pomeroy)

 

U.S. fighter pilots in Afghanistan prepare for more air strikes

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft takes off for a nighttime mission at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, August 22, 2017. REUTERS/Josh Smith

By Josh Smith

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – For the fighter pilots at the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump’s new strategy for the war should mean escalating an already surging air campaign, and possibly including an unrestrained offensive against the Taliban.

The number of U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan has already dramatically spiked since Trump took office in January, from 1,074 in all of last year to 2,244 as of August 20 this year.

After a months-long review of his Afghanistan policy, Trump committed the United States last week to an open-ended conflict in the country and promised a stepped-up campaign against the Taliban insurgents.

Few details have emerged, but the pilots in Bagram are preparing for the possibility they’ll be taking the fight to the Taliban in a way they haven’t since the U.S.-led “combat mission” in Afghanistan was called off at the end of 2014.

Among their targets since then have been Islamic State militants, who are also active in the country.

“Between the two groups, the Taliban are definitely smarter,” F-16 pilot Maj. Daniel Lindsey told Reuters. “The Taliban are much harder to kill.”

While Islamic State has launched a series of deadly attacks around the country, it has nowhere near the influence, reach, and community ties that the Taliban has.

It’s those factors that pilots say make the Taliban a more challenging target, and one that has outlasted years of heavy bombardment.

“The Taliban is often embedded in the community, but nobody likes the Islamic State, so they are often separate,” Lindsey said.

NEW PARAMETERS

In many ways, Trump’s policy is less a new plan than the continuation of a slow slide back into combat for American troops, although officials are quick to say their mission will remain focused on training and advising Afghan forces.

On Thursday, the commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, confirmed that his forces would increase air support for Afghan troops.

“We know the enemy fears air power,” he told reporters in Kabul.

White House officials have said that rolling back territorial gains by the Taliban will be one of the key objectives of the new strategy.

For a time after former president Barack Obama declared America’s combat mission over in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, U.S. forces were restricted from attacking the Taliban in most circumstances except self-defense.

As the group expanded its hold in Afghanistan, however, Obama began to loosen some of those rules and Trump has gone further in sending U.S. troops back into battle with their old adversaries.

Asked about the recent effects of U.S. air strikes, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group’s fighters had become used to dodging American bombs.

“In 2010, 2011 and 2012 the U.S. air strikes were successful and we lost many Mujahideen,” he told Reuters. “But now we have enough experience to avoid casualties during their strikes by hiding in mountain holes and other places.”

Still, forcing the Taliban to hide and preventing them from massing fighters has in some cases been credited with helping Afghan security forces hold on to some cities and blunt Taliban offensives.

EXPANDING STRIKES

Trump also announced that he would “lift restrictions and expand authorities in the field,” but it remains unclear exactly what that would entail.

A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, Capt. William Salvin, said U.S. forces are still limited to conducting air strikes in three broad circumstances: self-defense, counter-terrorism strikes against specific groups, and helping Afghan troops achieve “strategic effects.”

He declined to say whether those parameters might change.

The U.S. military does not publicize its rules of engagement, but Lindsey said compared to when he was a fighter pilot at the height of the troop surge in Iraq in 2007, the so-called “ROE” in Afghanistan were less restrictive.

“Some guys can complain about it, but most I know don’t seem to have any problem finding Islamic State or Taliban to kill,” he said. “If you use the rules smartly, you’ll get the bad guys.”

The surge in air strikes has led the U.S. Air Force units at Bagram to increase their maintenance and intelligence efforts, said F-16 pilot Maj. Abraham Lehman.

Officials say ramping up the number of strikes further would require the deployment of more support staff as well as additional specialized troops on the ground to coordinate the strikes.

While he said he had no information on new plans to deploy additional aircraft, Lehman said it “made sense” to increase air support as the Pentagon sends thousands more troops to the country.

“What we do is always a joint effort between us and the ground troops,” Lehman said.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni in Kabul, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Suicide attack at Kabul Shi’ite mosque kills ‘at least 14 civilians’

An Afghan policeman keeps guard the the site of attack in Kabul, Afghanistan August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomber detonated himself at the gate of a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in the Afghan capital as other attackers stormed the building, killing at least 14 people as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamic State militants have attacked minority Shi’ite targets in Afghanistan in the past.

An official at the Ministry of Interior said there were at least 14 civilian casualties, while at least two policemen had been killed and eight wounded.

At least two bodies and 15 wounded people had been brought to city hospitals, with ambulances retrieving more casualties at the scene, said Ismail Kawosi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health.

Some witnesses at the scene said the attackers threw grenades, while police officials said a suicide bomber detonated himself at the gate.

One witness said an attacker wearing a vest packed with explosives shot and killed the guards at the gate.

“At first a suicide bomber opened fire and martyred two security guards at the entrance of the mosque and then they entered inside,” Sayed Pacha told Reuters. “Some people escaped out of the mosque including women, but there were four attackers who managed to enter the mosque.”

Later explosions rocked the area, but their source was unclear.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Trump commits U.S. to open-ended Afghanistan war; Taliban vow ‘graveyard’

Military personnel watch as U.S. President Donald Trump announces his strategy for the war in Afghanistan during an address to the nation from Fort Myer, Virginia, U.S., August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Steve Holland and Hamid Shalizi

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) – President Donald Trump committed U.S. troops to an open-ended war in Afghanistan, a decision the Afghan government welcomed on Tuesday but which Taliban insurgents warned would make the country a “graveyard for the American empire”.

Trump offered few specifics in a speech on Monday but promised a stepped-up military campaign against the Taliban who have gained ground against U.S.-backed Afghan government forces. He also singled out Pakistan for harboring militants in safe havens on its soil.

Trump, who had in the past advocated a U.S. withdrawal, acknowledged he was going against his instincts in approving the new campaign plan sought by his military advisers but said he was convinced that leaving posed more risk.

“The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable,” he said. “A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill.”

Still, he promised an end to “nation-building” by U.S. forces in what has become American’s longest war and stressed that ultimately Afghanistan’s struggling police and army must defeat the Taliban.

“The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do. Afghans will secure and build their own nation and define their own future. We want them to succeed.”

Most of the approximately 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan work with a NATO-led training and advising mission, with the rest part of a counter-terrorism force that mostly targets pockets of al Qaeda and Islamic State fighters.

While Trump said he would not discuss troop levels or details of the new strategy, U.S. officials said on Monday he had signed off on Defense Secretary James Mattis’ plans to send about 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in welcoming the strategy, said it would increase the capacity of the training mission for Afghan forces, including enhancing its fledgling air force and doubling the size of the Afghan special forces.

“I am grateful to President Trump and the American people for this affirmation of support … for our joint struggle to rid the region from the threat of terrorism,” Ghani said in a statement.

The Taliban swiftly condemned Trump’s decision to keep American troops in Afghanistan without a withdrawal timetable, vowing to continue “jihad” until all U.S. soldiers were gone.

“If the U.S. does not pull all its forces out of Afghanistan, we will make this country the 21st century graveyard for the American empire,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

Republican Trump, who had criticized his predecessors for setting deadlines for drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, declined to put a timeline on expanded U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

Trump now inherits the same challenges as George W. Bush and Barack Obama, including a stubborn Taliban insurgency and a weak, divided Kabul government. He is laying the groundwork for greater U.S. involvement without a clear end in sight or providing specific benchmarks for success.

‘NO BLANK CHECK’

Trump warned that U.S. support “is not a blank check,” and insisted he would not engage in “nation-building,” a practice he has accused his predecessors of doing at huge cost.

Trump insisted through his speech that the Afghan government, Pakistan, India, and NATO allies step up their own commitment to resolving the 16-year conflict.

“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens,” he said.

Senior U.S. officials warned he could reduce security assistance for nuclear-armed Pakistan unless it cooperated more.

A Pakistani army spokesman said on Monday that Pakistan had taken action against all Islamist militants.

“There are no terrorist hideouts in Pakistan,” spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said.

Pakistan sees Afghanistan as a vital strategic interest. Obama sent Navy SEALs into Pakistan to kill al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that triggered the war in Afghanistan.

The Taliban government was overthrown by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001 but U.S. forces have been bogged down there ever since. About 2,400 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan.

Trump expanded the U.S. military’s authority for American forces to target militant and criminal networks, warning “that no place is beyond the reach of American arms”.

“Our troops will fight to win,” he said.

Trump’s speech came after a months-long review of U.S. policy in which the president frequently tangled with his top advisers.

He suggested he was hoping for eventual peace talks, and said it might be possible to have a political settlement with elements of the Taliban.

He said he was convinced by his national security advisers to strengthen the U.S. ability to prevent the Taliban from ousting Ghani’s government.

“My original instinct was to pull out,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, David Alexander, Yeganeh Torbati and Jeff Mason in WASHINGTON, Mirwais Harooni in KABUL, and Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR; Writing by Steve Holland and Warren Strobel; Editing by Yara Bayoumy, Peter Cooney and Paul Tait)

U.S. defense secretary in Iraq as troops battle for Tal Afar

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis gives a news conference after a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Vidal/File Photo

By Idrees Ali

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Iraq on Tuesday just days after the start of an offensive to oust Islamic State from the city of Tal Afar, with talks focused on backing Iraqi efforts to stabilize areas recaptured from the militant group.

Prior to arriving, Mattis said the fight against Islamic State was far from over despite recent successes by Western-backed Iraqi government forces. The battle for Tal Afar would be difficult, U.S. officials said.

Iraqi security forces opened the offensive to take back Tal Afar on Sunday, their latest objective in the war following the recapture of Mosul after a nine-month campaign that left much of the city in ruins.

Lying 80 km (50 miles) west of Mosul in Iraq’s far north, Tal Afar is a long-time stronghold of the hardline Sunni Muslim insurgents,

“ISIS’ days are certainly numbered, but it is not over yet and it is not going to be over anytime soon,” Mattis told reporters in Amman.

Mattis said that after retaking Tal Afar, Iraqi forces would move against the western Euphrates River valley.

Brigadier General Andrew Croft, responsible for coalition air operations over Iraq, said that between 10,000 and 20,000 civilians remained in Tal Afar. The plight of civilians was a big factor in the battle of Mosul as Islamic State tried to keep them areas it controlled to act as human shields against air strikes and artillery bombardments. Several thousand are believed to have been killed.

Croft said that over the past two or three months, he had seen a fracturing in Islamic State leadership.

“It just seems less coordinated. It appears more fractured, less robust, and sort of flimsy, is the word I would use… it is sporadic,” Croft told reporters.

Islamic State leaders fled Mosul during the fighting there and the whereabouts of its chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, are unknown. Unconfirmed reports in the past few months have said he is dead.

Brett McGurk, U.S. special envoy to the coalition, said that while the battle for Tal Afar would be difficult, Iraqi forces had retaken 235 square km (90 miles) in the first 24 hours.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mattis, who will meet Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defence Minister Arfan al-Hayali, will discuss the future of U.S. forces in Iraq after the recapture of the remaining cities under Islamic State, and the role they could play in stabilizing operations.

The officials said that while big cities like Mosul have been largely been cleared of Islamic State militants, there were concerns about the ability of Iraqi forces to hold territory.

Mattis said pockets of resistance remained in west Mosul, including sleeper cells. Iraqi security forces were capable of carrying out simultaneous operations, he added.

Islamic State is also on the back foot in Syria, where Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition have captured swathes of its territory in the north and are assaulting its main Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

McGurk said about 2,000 Islamic State fighters remained in Raqqa and as much as 60 percent of the city had been retaken.

The jihadist group is now falling back deeper into the Euphrates valley region of eastern Syria.

Mattis said the next step for forces fighting Islamic State in Syria would be a move against the middle Euphrates valley, a reference to the militants’ stronghold in Deir al-Zor province southeast of Raqqa.

KURDISH REFERENDUM

A U.S. official also said Mattis would press Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, to call off a planned referendum on independence.

Iraq’s Kurds have said they will hold the referendum on Sept. 25 despite concerns from Iraq’s neighbors who have Kurdish minorities within their borders and a U.S. request to postpone it.

However, a senior Kurdish official said the Kurds may consider the possibility of a postponement in return for financial and political concessions from the central government in Baghdad.

McGurk said the Kurdish delegation’s recent visit to Baghdad was encouraging.

The Pentagon signed an agreement with Peshmerga forces last year to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and equipment.

The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the memorandum of understanding would expire soon and suggested that Mattis could use it as a bargaining chip.

The United States and other Western nations fear the vote could ignite a new conflict with Baghdad and possibly neighboring countries, diverting attention from the ongoing war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Trump to present vision for U.S. strategy in Afghanistan war

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Army soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, B battery 2-8 field artillery, fire a howitzer artillery piece at Seprwan Ghar forward fire base in Panjwai district, Kandahar province southern Afghanistan, June 12, 2011.

By Steve Holland and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It will be President Donald Trump’s turn on Monday to address a problem that vexed his two predecessors when he details his strategy for the war in Afghanistan, America’s longest military conflict.

In a prime-time speech to the nation, Trump may announce a modest increase in U.S. troops, as recommended by his senior advisers.

Trump has long been skeptical of the U.S. approach in the region, where the Afghan war is in its 16th year.

He announced a strategic review soon after taking office in January and has privately questioned whether sending more troops was wise, U.S. officials said.

“We’re not winning,” he told advisers in a mid-July meeting, questioning whether Army General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, should be fired, an official said.

Trump, who on Sunday ended a two-week working vacation at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, reached his decision on Afghanistan after lengthy talks with his top military and national security aides at Camp David, Maryland, on Friday.

A White House statement on Sunday said Trump would “provide an update on the path forward for America’s engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia.”

A senior administration official said the likeliest outcome was that Trump would agree to a modest increase in U.S. troops. Current U.S. troop numbers are about 8,400.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and overthrew the Islamist Taliban government. But U.S. forces have remained bogged down there through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Trump.

“I took over a mess, and we’re going to make it a lot less messy,” Trump said when asked about Afghanistan earlier this month.

 

TALIBAN THREAT

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has argued that a U.S. military presence is needed to protect against the ongoing threat from Islamist militants.

Afghan security forces have struggled to prevent advances by Taliban insurgents. The war stymied the Obama administration, which committed an increase of tens of thousands of U.S. troops to reverse Taliban gains, then committed to a troop drawdown, which ultimately had to be halted.

Earlier this year, Trump gave Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, opening the door for future troop increases requested by Nicholson. The general, who leads U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, said in February he needed “a few thousand” additional forces, some potentially drawn from U.S. allies.

U.S. military and intelligence officials are concerned that a Taliban victory would allow al Qaeda and Islamic State’s regional affiliate to establish bases in Afghanistan from which to plot attacks against the United States and its allies.

One reason the White House decision has taken so long, two officials who participated in the discussions said on Sunday, is that it was difficult to get Trump to accept the need for a broader regional strategy that included U.S. policy toward Pakistan before making a decision on whether to send additional forces to Afghanistan.

Both officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to disclose Trump’s decisions on troop levels and Pakistan policy before he does.

The difficulty in reaching a decision was compounded, the two officials said, by the wide range of conflicting options Trump received.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other advisers favored accepting Nicholson’s request for some 4,000 additional U.S. forces.

But recently ousted White House strategic adviser Steve Bannon had argued for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces, saying that after 16 years, the war was still not winnable, U.S. officials said. Bannon, fired on Friday by Trump, was not at the Camp David meeting.

The officials said that another option examined was shrinking the U.S. force by some 3,000 troops and leaving a smaller counterterrorism and intelligence-gathering contingent to carry out special operations and direct drone strikes against the Taliban.

Proponents argued that option was less costly in lives and money and would add less to the damage already inflicted on U.S. special operations forces by the long-running battles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria.

 

 

(Additional reporting by Idrees Ali traveling with Mattis in Amman; Writing by James Oliphant; Editing Peter Cooney.)