Top US team heads to Kabul for war strategy

KABUL: US President Donald Trump is dispatching his first high-level delegation to Afghanistan to begin to formulate a strategy for a war that has entangled NATO forces for more than 15 years and continues to inflict heavy casualties on local troops.

Afghan officials hope National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster will provide clarity from an administration that they feel has neglected their plight as it concentrates on crises in Syria and North Korea.

On Wednesday, Trump announced he was sending McMaster to “find out how we can make progress alongside our Afghan partners and NATO allies.” The timing of the visit has yet to be confirmed by US and Afghan officials.

Despite general declarations of support for the Western-backed government in Kabul, the Trump administration has given few concrete signals of its plans for Afghanistan, which remains heavily dependant on billions of dollars in American aid.

US forces also make up the bulk of NATO’s training mission in Afghanistan, provide close air support to soldiers on the ground and form a separate counter-terrorism unit that targets Daesh, Al-Qaeda and other militant networks.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who like McMaster is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was forced to scrap a visit to the country in February because of bad weather.

This makes McMaster’s trip the first by a senior official from the new administration, although earlier this month he spent an hour on the phone to Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar for a detailed brief, according to one Western official.