[As President Trump prepares to announce his Afghanistan strategy, American and Afghan military officials appear to believe the plan will resemble what the Pentagon would like to see: authorization of 3,900 more American troops who would be used to continue to help train, advise and assist the hugely challenged Afghan security forces.]
By Helene Cooper
 |
|
Afghan commandos on
Sunday at Camp Morehead, a training base southeast of
Kabul, at a ceremony celebrating
their efforts. Credit
Helene Cooper/The New York Times
|
CAMP
MOREHEAD, Afghanistan — In
an hourlong ceremony in a valley a few miles southeast of Kabul on Sunday, more
than 300 members of the Afghan National Army Special Operations Command stood
at attention at Camp Morehead, a training base, as a succession of officials,
American and Afghan, told them how successful they had been at fighting the
Taliban.
And with the total number of special
operation forces soon to reach 30,000, a full corps, their enemies would flee
in the face of them, the commandos were assured.
President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, in strident
tones at odds with his usual mild demeanor, told the gathered troops that they
had saved the sovereignty of the country when the Taliban threatened.
“The Taliban have never won against the
commandos and the Ktah Khas,” added Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander
of the Afghanistan war effort, referring to a unit of the Afghan special
operations forces. “They never will.”
But all the confidence and congratulations
disguised a larger truth at the heart of why the Taliban have managed to take
back so much territory in Afghanistan.
The country’s current number of 21,000
special operations troops, while set to grow soon, account for only 7 percent
of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. But they do from 70 percent
to 80 percent of the actual fighting.
The bulk of the Afghan military and police
forces are still well below the readiness and ability levels that American and
NATO war planners hoped they would have reached when they began training the
country’s security forces in 2002.
As President Trump prepares to announce his
Afghanistan strategy, American and Afghan military officials appear to believe
the plan will resemble what the Pentagon would like to see: authorization of
3,900 more American troops who would be used to continue to help train, advise
and assist the hugely challenged Afghan security forces.
That number, American and NATO officials
said, would likely be supplemented by a few hundred additional advisers and trainers
from NATO and other countries that have contributed to the American-led war
effort here.
If Mr. Trump does not grant the Pentagon’s
request for a more robust American troop level, there is concern that the
Afghan forces may not be able to even maintain the current stalemate, causing
the country’s security situation to backslide further, and that Kabul, the
capital, could come under more high-visibility attacks.
Even if the extra numbers do come through,
military officials acknowledged that Afghanistan’s security forces were nowhere
close to being able to defend the country on their own or to keep it from
returning to its former status as a launching pad for terrorist attacks abroad.
A resurgent Taliban, which by American
estimates controls more than 40 percent of the population centers of Helmand
Province in the south, continues to bedevil the beleaguered Afghan security
forces, while the Islamic State has taken root in Nangarhar Province in the
east.
Despite the challenges, Gen. Joseph L. Votel,
the head of United States Central Command, and other senior officers presented
an upbeat assessment of the war effort in a series of briefings with reporters
during a visit to Afghanistan to meet with the country’s military and political
leaders.
The Taliban had not managed to take any
provincial capitals or to hold any important cities in this year’s fighting
season, they said.
“The enemy is not doing very well,” said Maj.
Gen. James B. Linder, the American Special Operations commander in Afghanistan.
“The reality on the ground,” he added, “is quite different” from what the
Taliban’s claims may suggest.
In an attack last month at the Iraqi Embassy
in Kabul, only two civilians were killed, military officials said, noting that
the attack could have been much worse were it not for the fast response of the
Afghan police special operations forces.
What was played down in discussions with
reporters was how much help from the United States military the Afghan special
forces require, with many operations closely advised and even led, in effect,
by their American partners.
The uncertainty brought about by Mr. Trump’s
delay in announcing a new Afghanistan strategy has not helped the situation on
the ground, either, and a number of Afghan security officials expressed sharp
opposition to one proposal that Mr. Trump has been considering: outsourcing the
mission of training, advising and assisting Afghan troops to private
contractors.
That would be “running away from
responsibilities, from the promises that were made to the civilians in the
region,” said Sgt. Maj. Rehle Hussaini, an Afghan military official attending a
meeting on Saturday at Bagram Air Base, the main American military base in the
country.
One concern was that private contractors
might be more eager to extend the fighting in Afghanistan as a moneymaking
venture than trying to end it.
But none of those misgivings were evident at
the Camp Morehead ceremony on Sunday.
The array of smartly dressed special forces,
including a handful of women, cheered and clapped as one general after another
praised them as Afghanistan’s finest and bravest.
When Afghan commandos “appear on the
battlefield,” General Nicholson told them, “the enemy has no choice but to run,
or die.”
Rod Nordland contributed reporting from
Kabul, Afghanistan
