KABUL — As the Trump administration nears a decision on whether to send several thousand more troops to Afghanistan, a move that could be announced at an upcoming NATO summit in Brussels, US military officials here say the plan would include sending hundreds of American Special Operations forces to train up to 17,000 new members of Afghan special forces, an elite group seen as key to beating back a growing Taliban insurgency.
The additional foreign troops would not be involved directly in combat, the officials said. But they believe a burst of intensive support for the struggling Afghan defense forces, with a focus on maximizing their best assets, could break the current stalemate in the 16-year war and improve chances for a peaceful settlement — without introducing an intrusive foreign military presence just two years after NATO combat troops withdrew.
‘‘The end state is reconciliation with the Taliban, not a return to an ISAF and American combat role against the Taliban,’’ said US Army Brigadier General Patrick J. Donahoe, referring to the International Security Assistance Force, the previous US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan. ‘‘We want the Afghan government to be in a position of authority when the talks start,’’ said Donahoe, a senior planner in Kabul for the current NATO mission, called Resolute Support.
US military officials here took pains to emphasize the limited size and role of any added forces, and they noted that only about half of the new troops would be Americans. The rest would from other countries that contribute to Resolute Support.
Currently, the United States contributes about 6,700 of the 12,400 foreign troops here, followed by Germany, Italy, Georgia, and 35 other countries. The US portion is not likely to change, meaning that if 3,000 new troops were sent to Afghanistan, about 1,500 would be from the United States.
‘‘This is not going to be even a mini-surge,’’ said Navy Captain William Salvin, senior spokesman for the US military here. He said NATO officials have already approved more than 15,000 total slots for Resolute Support this year and that adding 3,000-plus would not pass that ceiling.
Resolute Support is separate from a US counterterrorism mission in which about 2,100 Special Operations forces fight alongside Afghan commandos in raids against Islamic State militants and other international fighters. That force is not expected to grow, and new service members who join Resolute Support would not be permitted to fight.
The current orders for Resolute Support are to ‘‘train, advise and assist’’ Afghan security forces, and that will not change with the addition of more troops, officials here said. Their short-term goal would be to improve the combat ability of Afghanistan’s 352,000-member security forces; the long-term aim would be to make them self-sufficient by 2020.
The immediate need, officials said, is to push back harder against the Taliban. The Islamist insurgents have been steadily gaining territory since the departure of most foreign troops at the end of 2014.
A top priority is to quickly expand the size and capacity of the Afghan special forces. About 17,000 regular soldiers would be moved into the special forces, doubling their size.
A second priority is to improve the effectiveness of regular army and police forces.
