No decision on US troop surge in Afghanistan
TRUMP PROMISES A STEPPED-UP MILITARY CAMPAIGN AGAINST TALIBAN WHO HAVE GAINED GROUND IN REGION
The Pentagon has yet to decide how many more US troops to send to Afghanistan as it is still drawing up a plan, Defence Secretary James Mattis said yesterday, after President Donald Trump committed the United States to an open-ended war there.
Trump offered few specifics in a televised address about Afghanistan on Monday, but promised a steppedup military campaign against Taliban insurgents who have gained ground against US-backed Afghan government forces.
He also singled out neighbouring Pakistan for harbouring militants, an accusation denied by Islamabad.
The Afghan government welcomed Trump’s speech but the Taliban said it would make the country a “graveyard for the American empire”. Mattis said he was waiting for a plan from the US military’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, before deciding how many more troops to send to Afghanistan, where the US is fighting its longest war.
“When he brings that to me, I will determine how many more we need to send in,” Mattis told reporters during a visit to Baghdad. “It may or may not be the number that is bandied about.”
P resident Donald Trump committed US troops to an open-ended war in Afghanistan, a decision the Afghan government welcomed yesterday, 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 US-backed Afghan government forces.
While Trump said he would not discuss troop levels or details of the new strategy, US officials said on Monday he had signed off on Defence Secretary James Mattis’ plans to send about 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Trump said “my original instinct was to pull out” all American troops, but he was convinced by his military advisers after a lengthy review of the United States’ longest war.
“The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable,” he said. “A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS [Daesh] and Al Qaida, would instantly fill.” While Trump said “our troops will fight to win”, he also stressed that ultimately Afghanistan’s police and army must do most of the fighting to defeat the Taliban and allied Islamist militants.
Changing stance
“The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do . ... We want them to succeed.”
Most of the approximately 8,400 US 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 Qaida and Daesh terrorists.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani welcomed the strategy saying it would expand the training mission for Afghan forces, which includes building 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. “If the US 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.
US-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban’s hardline Islamist government in late 2001 over its sheltering of Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden, architect of the September 11, 2001, attacks in US cities that killed nearly 2,000 people. But US forces have been bogged down ever since in a war that has vexed three presidents. About 2,400 US troops have died in Afghanistan.
Trump, who had criticised his predecessor for setting deadlines for drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, declined to put a timeline on expanded US operations in Afghanistan.
Former President Barack Obama’s deadlines for troop decreases brought the US military footprint from about 100,000 in 2011 to 8,400.
The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do ... We want them to succeed.” Donald Trump | US President