In the face of the latest deadly terrorist attack in Kabul, and a just-released internal audit that shows Afghan security forces are shrinking, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis insisted Tuesday the Pentagon never promised things would be getting better in Afghanistan anytime soon.
“I don’t know that that’s been the message from this building, I would not subscribe to that,” Mattis said when questioned by a reporter at a photo op with the Macedonian defense minister.
“We said last August NATO is going to hold the line, we knew there would be tough fighting going forward,” he added.
Mattis’ sober assessment came one day after as many as 31 people were killed by back-to-back suicide bombings in Kabul, the Afghan capital, the latest in a string of attacks that have shaken residents there.
An Islamic State affiliate has claimed credit for the Monday’s attacks by a pair of suicide bombers, in which one attacker disguised as a TV cameraman targeted journalists who had gathered to cover the first blast with a second explosion.
“The murder of journalists and other innocent people is a great testimony to what it is we stand for and more importantly what we stand against,” Mattis said, but also admitted it is simply impossible to thwart every attack from a determined, and increasingly desperate foe.
“We anticipated and are doing our best and have been successful at blocking many of these attacks on innocent people, but unfortunately, once in a while, they get through,” He said. “Any terrorist organization that realizes it can’t win by ballots turns to bombs. This is simply what they do; they murder innocent people.”
Mattis’ remarks are in stark contrast to the upbeat assessment given by U.S. commanders just a few months ago.
In November, Army Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, called President Trump’s new Afghan strategy a “game changer” that he said put the Afghan government forces “on a path to a win.”
“President [Ashraf] Ghani said he believes we have turned the corner, and I agree,” Nicholson said at a Pentagon briefing. “The momentum is now with the Afghan Security Forces, and the Taliban cannot win.”
When Mattis visited Afghanistan in March and met with Nicholson, he was more reserved.
“We do look towards a victory in Afghanistan,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him, but “not a military victory. The victory will be a political reconciliation.”
The latest report to Congress from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, released Monday, notes that both the Afghan army and police forces are shrinking, while Taliban control over parts of the country is expanding.
The size of the Afghan security forces has dropped to below 300,000, a reduction of 36,000 soldiers and police compared to a year ago.
Meanwhile, the report shows the Afghan government has lost control of four percent of the territory it governed, while insurgents now control 14.5 percent of the country’s total districts — the highest level recorded since SIGAR began receiving district control data.
Still, Mattis insisted none of the Taliban gains have been in major population centers and that newly arrived U.S. advisers are just now beginning to have an effect.
It’s not just the raw numbers of Afghan troops that matters, Mattis argues, but how effective they are in combat.
“The Afghan military is being made more capable, you’ll notice that more of the forces are special forces, advised and assisted, accompanied by NATO mentors and these are the most effective forces,” he said. “So, the expansion there is why the enemy has been unable to take any district centers provincial centers or make any advances there.”
The SIGAR report notes that specially constituted U.S. Army units known security force assistance brigades, which are designed specifically to advise convention combat units in the field, are just now being sent to Afghanistan.
Only one has arrived so far, and the report says it’s too early to judge its effectiveness.
