The new US commander in Afghanistan has submitted his first three-month assessment of the situation in the war-torn country and what it’s going to take to defeat the Taliban, a US military official has told The Associated Press.
And though the content of the review by US Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the US strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Barack Obama decided to expand America’s involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the US military wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground.
The report — and Nicholson’s deployment to Afghanistan — come at a time of Taliban resurgence, with the group gaining ground in the southern provinces of the Taliban heartland.
After 90 days in the country, Nicholson has now “completed his assessment and submitted it to his chain of command at the Pentagon,” said a US military official in Afghanistan, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the issue.
Since all foreign combat troops pulled out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014, leaving only an advisory and training contingent of international forces behind, the Afghan military has struggled in leading the fight, its 195,000 soldiers learning as they go. The 9,800 remaining US troops in Afghanistan are scheduled to drop to 5,500 by the end of this year, but the pace of that decline has yet to be decided. One factor in determining future troop levels is the extent to which NATO allies are willing to remain involved in training and advising the Afghans.
That is likely to figure prominently in Nicholson’s review, which is widely expected to include a recommendation for more US soldiers to boost training.

Source : Arab News