The NATO and USA forces completed their combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, after 13 years of military presence in the country.
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The top USA military commander in Afghanistan said Tuesday that US troops are shifting the primary emphasis of recently approved operations against the Taliban to the eastern part of the country, where a variety of insurgents remain entrenched.
Carter has met with President Ashraf Ghani and will speak with General Mick Nicholson, the commander of USA and worldwide forces in Afghanistan.
It’s Carter’s second stop in a war zone in as many days, part of a weeklong trip that has underscored America’s growing commitment to two wars that President Barack Obama inherited but has not been able to end.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter Tuesday painted a rosy picture of the progress made in Afghanistan.
Along the way, Carter has solidified through promises and plans what most Americans have feared since the rise of the Islamic State group and the resurgence of Taliban aggression, both amid political upheaval throughout the region: that President Barack Obama can not follow through on his campaign pledges to end US wars in the Middle East.
Of that number, around 3,000 will be advising Afghan troops, and 3,300 will be working as “enablers” in support roles, Nicholson said. In addition, he said he will keep “some hundreds” of forces “over the horizon” out of the country that will be considered part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mission to advise and assist Afghan forces.
More than 2,000 of the remaining US troops will support the USA counterterrorism mission.
The administration followed those announcements with the news Monday that Obama would deploy 560 troops to Iraq to help retake Mosul, the largest city controlled by the Islamic State. He will also thank US troops for their efforts toward stabilizing Afghanistan and preventing the country from again becoming a safe haven for terrorists who wish to launch attacks against the U.S.
Carter said the new rules have helped the Afghan troops, while top U.S. general in Afghanistan John Nicholson said the United States had been using these new powers nearly daily, including around the northern city of Kunduz, which Taliban fighters briefly seized previous year.
A U.S. Marine carries drinking water before their withdrawal from the base, at Camp Bastion in Helmand province October 25, 2014.
When asked specifically whether there is any limit to the number of troops the U.S.is willing to dedicate to the conflict in Iraq, Carter cited the ongoing work of Army Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top USA general there on the ground, in appraising how the US can bolster the local military’s shaky success. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation also said it would begin training Iraqi troops inside Iraq, building on training now taking place in Jordan, in what will put a broader worldwide imprint on the campaign against Islamic State terrorists. “It will make it harder [and] you can expect that we will see an increased refugee flow out of Afghanistan if we are not successful”.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leaders also agreed to provide around 352,000 Afghan security troops with up to $1 billion in annual funding over the next three years.
Allies who have troops in the country, including Germany and Italy, and USA military leaders had pressed the U.S.to continue to provide the security and logistics support they get now.
Obama went into the White House pledging to withdraw the United States from Afghanistan’s almost 15-year conflict.
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Government forces said on Saturday they had recovered the air base, about 40 miles from the northern city, with air support from the US -led military coalition. Surveys have shown that Afghans widely distrust the police – whose job is to maintain control in places freed from Taliban control – and a fifth don’t trust the military.
