NATO Still Short of Troops for Afghan Boost

NATO countries have still not agreed how many extra troops they will send to Afghanistan to boost local forces in their fight against the resurgent Taliban, AFP reports the the alliance’s chief as admitting Thursday. NATO this week announced it wanted to send around 3,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, bringing the Western military footprint up to about 16,000 soldiers to help the Afghans break the stalemate in the 16-year fight against the Taliban. But after talks with the alliance’s 29 defence ministers in Brussels, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged there were still “gaps” in the roster that needed to be filled. “We are now in the process of increasing the troop level,” Stoltenberg said. “We haven’t finalised that so it’s not possible to provide any final figures when it comes to how much different countries are going to contribute.” The additional troops, most of them American, will help train and advise local Afghan forces who have struggled to hold Taliban and Islamic State extremists at bay while suffering heavy casualties. Washington has asked NATO allies to contribute 1,000 extra troops for Afghanistan to add to 2,800 US forces, but diplomatic sources say they may have to be content with just 700. Stoltenberg said NATO had made progress but was still in the process of gathering troop commitments. “We got some new announcements from some nations during the meeting today but we staill have some gaps that we will continue to work on,” he said. NATO leaders are optimistic that 2018 could see Afghan forces start to gain momentum against the Taliban, thanks to renewed training efforts, a growing air force and thousands of extra Afghan commandos.