President Barack Obama has ordered the deployment of 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan. The reinforcements would be sent over within sex months.
Obama will announce the decision in a national televised speech at the US Military Academy at West Point Tuesday night. He will also give a rough timeframe for when the main US military mission will end.
The 30,000 additional troops will bring the total soldiers in Afghanistan to 100,000 US forces. The main mission of the new troops will be to reverse Taliban gains and secure population centres in the volatile south and east parts of the country.
The administration hopes the military can begin to hand responsibility to Afghan troops by the end of the president’s term, within the next three years. However, military experts caution that it is difficult to put precise timelines on the development of Afghan security forces.
US casualties are at record levels – more than 900 US soldiers have died. Obama’s speech was expected to strike a balance between assuring Americans their forces would not remain in Afghanistan indefinitely.
The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said: “What we are going to do after eight years is institute a genuine strategy for Afghanistan that trains the Afghan national security forces.”
However, he added: “This can’t be nation-building. It can’t be an open-ended forever commitment. It’s a plan for getting our men and women back where they belong, which is here in the United States.”
He added: “We’re going to accelerate going after al-Qaida and its extremist allies. We’ll accelerate the training of an Afghan national security force, a police and an army.”
“Although that is a goal and where we think it could eventually go to, it’s not a hard, firm, fixed number,” said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell in Kabul, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
The Telegraph.co.uk reported that Abdul Hadi Arghandehwal, the chairman of Hizb-e-Islami, one of Afghanistan’s most powerful political parties, said ultimately only a political solution would succeed.
He said: “I don’t see any better choice for the time being, but we are not very much in favour of having more troops here. More troops means more fighting.
“Hopefully we will find a way to solve the problem through politics, but to pave the ground for a political solution needs a push. I believe that the morale the Taliban have at the moment, they are all thinking of victory.”
