U. S. army to send more troops to aid local forces

KABUL — The U. S. Army will deploy hundreds of soldiers to the southern province of Helmand in Afghanistan, where Afghan forces have been pushed to the brink by Taliban militants, a military spokesman said Tuesday. It will be the largest deployment of U. S. troops outside major bases in Afghanistan since the end of the NATO combat mission in 2014. Though the military insists that the soldiers will not take active combat roles, U. S. Special Operations forces have increasingly been drawn into the fighting in Helmand as one important district after another has fallen or been threatened by Taliban insurgents. Col. Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for the U. S. military in Afghanistan, said in a statement that the new deployment would provide protection for the current Special Operations troops in Helmand and give extra support and training for the 215th Corps of the Afghan National Army. Afghan forces in Helmand have taken heavy casualties in recent months and have been cut off by the Taliban in many places. “Our mission,” Lawhorn said, “remains the same: to train, advise, and assist our Afghan counterparts, and not to participate in combat operations.” He would not detail the number of troops or the unit involved in the deployment, citing Pentagon policy. But a senior U. S. military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the unit being sent to Helmand, the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, was slightly smaller than the usual battalion size of 700 to 800 soldiers. Alarm has risen in Kabul and Washington as a resurgent Taliban insurgency has pushed government forces to the edge. Faced with the possible collapse of the remaining government forces in Helmand, the Pentagon began ratcheting up the role of U. S. Special Operations forces there last autumn, increasing air attacks and putting more advisers on the ground. One American was killed and two were wounded there in early January as Afghan and U. S. troops sought to break a Taliban encirclement of the Marjah district. Under the current security agreement with Afghanistan, U. S. forces are mostly in the country to provide training and logistical support, and as part of a counterterrorism mission targeting al Qaeda and a splinter group of Islamic State militants.