A senior Defense official says the move will allow the USA military to proactively help the Afghan military in its fight against a resurgent Taliban.
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Last week, more than a dozen retired USA generals and diplomats urged Obama to maintain the current level of troops in Afghanistan, warning that a reduction would undercut the morale of Afghan government forces and bolster the Taliban.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook, asked Thursday whether the administration was looking at expanding the USA military’s authorities to strike the Taliban more broadly, said: “In every step of our review of Afghanistan, the question of what’s the best way to use our forces is something we’re constantly looking at”.
Under the new authorities, US forces will be able to “proactively support Afghan conventional forces” with more firepower, “especially through close air support” and by accompanying and advising Afghan conventional forces, said the official.
Last month, the Afghan Taliban selected Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new leader after the United States killed their former chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in a drone strike in Pakistan.
A senior defense official said the military has been “advocating” to expand its mandate, noting that the Taliban made significant advances previous year and that Afghan forces couldn’t keep up.
The anonymous US official was not permitted to speak openly on the matter of airstrikes, according to AP, but the US Department of Defense did address US troop levels in Afghanistan.
President Obama’s decision to authorize the new measures is a reflection of the deteriorating security in Afghanistan, where local forces are struggling to contain a resurgent Taliban, along with al-Qaeda and Islamic State cells, that have proved a formidable force as foreign forces have withdrawn.
“If we can’t get out there. we can’t see if the troops are getting shoes, or getting bullets, or getting grenades, or getting paid, and the security will have an impact on that”, Sopko said. Officials stressed that this will not allow routine US airstrikes against the Taliban, just provide authority to take those actions when commanders believe they are vital to the fight. He said the planned drawdown of USA 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. And they point to the Taliban’s loss of its leader, Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour, who was killed by a US drone strike in late May in Pakistan. But there is a broad desire to give the military greater ability to help the Afghan forces.
Most of the 9,800 US military forces in Afghanistan are serving in a training mission known as “Resolute Support” that for the most part is conducted on large bases.
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