KABUL — Days after President Trump’s announcement of a new strategy for Afghanistan, the top US officials in Kabul said Thursday that a promised increase in US military personnel and air power was underway in the country.
At a news conference in the Afghan capital, the military commander for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General John W. Nicholson, said that the influx of new troops — mostly trainers for the Afghan security forces — would continue over the next few months.
He did not provide details on the number of troops, and he emphasized that US forces would remain in Afghanistan with no prestated timeline for withdrawal. Previous reports have suggested that the increase, which Trump has put in the hands of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former Marine general, would amount to around 4,000 additional US troops.
They would be joining a US force that officially totals about 8,400, but that the Pentagon recently acknowledged to The Wall Street Journal is closer to 12,000. More than 4,000 troops from other NATO countries are also said to be in Afghanistan.
“There will be additional capabilities, some of that is already arriving,’’ Nicholson said. “But we are not going to talk about the specific numbers. We are not going to telegraph to the enemy what it is we are going to do and how we are going to influence the battlefield.’’
Nicholson said that air support to the Afghan forces would also be ramping up. That support has already been extensive in a year of major territorial gains for the Taliban insurgency. The US Air Force reported dropping about 1,250 bombs and other ordnance in the first seven months of this year, almost twice as many as in the same period last year.
At the same news conference, the top US diplomat in Afghanistan, Hugo Llorens, said that the new commitment was a message to the Taliban that negotiation would be the only way out of the war.
“The Taliban has a choice: they can continue to kill fellow Afghans and terrorize communities in a conflict they have no possibility of winning,’’ Llorens said. “Or they can seek reconciliation and put an end to the war.’’
Though Trump’s Afghan strategy announcement came Monday, discussion within the administration and the Pentagon over the increase in troops had gone on for months, including plans for how to deploy them.
On Thursday, Nicholson characterized the new strategy in Afghanistan as defining success by conditions on the ground and not “arbitrary timelines.’’ And he described the Taliban as a criminal organization increasingly focused on its profit from the drug trade.
The Taliban reacted to the news conference in real time, with one Twitter account associated with the insurgents saying that the general “describes Taliban as criminals & still wants Taliban to join his rotten political process.’’
After nearly 16 years of war, the new troop commitment without deadlines is also a tacit US commitment to a conflict that is not going well. Though US officials insist that the Afghan forces must bear the brunt of the fighting, they also acknowledge a long road ahead for army and police forces that have lost men in record numbers.
The officials have also signaled frustration with the pace of reform in the national police forces, which are widely seen as unruly and corrupt despite years of international assistance and training.
