Pentagon officials said that while Afghan forces have made steady progress, there is room for improvement. But there is a broad desire to give the military greater ability to help the Afghan forces.
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President Barack Obama has granted US military commanders more freedom to strike Taliban targets in support of Afghan troops, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced Friday.
Afghan authorities on Wednesday recovered the bullet-ridden bodies of 12 security officials captured by the Taliban in eastern Ghazni province.
Pentagon officials say they don’t believe this will cause USA troops to be in direct combat moving forward.
Nicholson has not yet submitted a formal assessment expected to follow his initial months as commander, officials said, but he had separately asked for the new authorities in response to battlefield conditions in the country.
The decision comes as the Afghans struggle with a resurgent Taliban, particularly in the south. US forces will also be permitted to accompany regular Afghan troops into combat against the Taliban. That effort, however, has been stalled by the slow pace of the development of the Afghan military and the resilience of the Taliban.
Obama is under pressure from the Afghan government and some USA military leaders to back down on his plans to reduce American forces there.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the decision will allow the USA military to “act proactively”.
The Afghan conflict has cost the USA nearly $700 billion and killed more than 2,200 US troops.
Waziri said: “We may not need more boots on the ground, but we need their advisors and we need them to equip our air force”.
Local support for USA efforts has been undermined by the unintended killing of Afghan civilians.
The expansion will also give US commanders more flexibility in ordering airstrikes to support Afghan offensives, since American troops will be with their Afghan partners.
Defence Secretary Ash Carter said the order was issued to General Sean MacFarland, US commander in Afghanistan. He said the planned drawdown of us troops could compound the reconstruction effort’s problems and add to the amount that already has been wasted, which he estimated is in the billions of dollars. “I don’t think anybody, from the President on down, was under the illusion that after a couple of years of being responsible for the security situation of their own country, that the Afghan government and Afghan security forces would eliminate entirely the threat from the Taliban or any other extremists in that country”, Earnest said. Limited strikes have been allowed in cases of self-defense or when Afghan forces were in danger of being overrun.
The changes come just after the top US commander in the country, Gen. John Nicholson, completed a 90-day review he started when he took command.
As the security situation has deteriorated, American military commanders have made recommendations to the White House for expanded authorities.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook was asked on Thursday whether the administration was looking at expanding the US military’s authorities to strike the Taliban more broadly.
“It’s using forces we have in a better way, as we go through this fighting season, rather than simply reacting”, he said. He said that the planned drawdown of United States troops could compound the problems of reconstruction effort and could add to the amount that had already been wasted, which he estimated to be in billions of dollars.
Carter pushed back on any notion that expanded authorities mean a change in mission.
The new measures, approved by Obama late last month, will permit military leaders to send USA troops on battlefield missions with conventional Afghan forces, broadening an activity that now occurs only with elite local troops, and will expand the use of US air power for offensive missions against the Taliban.
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The discussion inside the administration has been centered around whether to change those authorities so US warplanes could now strike Taliban targets even if they do not pose a direct imminent threat.
