The U.S. will take advantage of the temporary cease-fire with the Taliban declared in Afghanistan to train its firepower on ISIS Khorasan and al Qaeda remnants, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels Friday.
“Should the Taliban take full advantage of the cease-fire in the best interest of the Afghan people, then many of the surveillance assets we have overhead could be reoriented to ISIS-K, to al-Qaeda, and other foreign terrorists who have no business being in Afghanistan in the first place,” Mattis told reporters.
“And obviously, those forces that would have been otherwise engaging the Taliban … those forces are now in a stronger position to focus elsewhere,” he said. “So there’s a fair amount of capability, then, that would be available.”
But it all depends on whether the Taliban honor the cease-fire, which was declared unilaterally by Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. It’s set to begin June 12 and last one-week to coincide with the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
“So, we’ll see how it works out, and we’ll keep you posted,” Mattis added.
The U.S. defense secretary also disputed the conclusion of recent internal Pentagon audits that suggested there has only been “minimal progress” in efforts to subdue the Taliban.
“The number of enemy-initiated attacks are down, which means more of the attacks are now initiated by the Afghan and NATO forces,” Mattis said. “That in itself is an indicator of the initiative is shifting.”
Progress and violence can coexist, he argued.
“It is a very challenging intellectual effort to try to get your hands around it. You have to look at who initiates the attacks,” he said. “Sometimes, violence can actually indicate you’re getting closer to peace; we’ve all seen that at the end of other conflicts.”
Another sign that the new strategy of giving greater assistance to Afghan forces is the growing number of countries that have joined the NATO-led Resolute Support mission. Recently, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have the joined the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, bringing the coalition to a total of 41 nations.
“We have had other nations increase the number of troops that they are committing, we have had other nations contribute significant amounts of development funds,” Mattis said. “So, what you’re seeing are objective indicators of a subjective analysis that the strategy is on the right track.”
“NATO allies and partners aren’t just maintaining their contributions to our Resolute Support mission, they are increasing them,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “Based on our discussions today, I am confident that we will agree to extend funding to the Afghan Security Forces to 2024 at next month’s summit.”
