President Obama is halting plans to pull all troops out of Afghanistan by the end of next year, instead cutting the number in half going into 2017, according to a senior administration officials.
Today’s level of 9,800 military personnel will remain through “most of” 2016, officials said. Without specifying exactly when, late in the year the number of troops, all of whom are non-combat, will drop to 5,500.
Obama, who officially ended combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of last year, has been under pressure from Afghan officials, regional allies and some lawmakers to leave more than just enough troops to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul ever since.
Gen. John Campbell, who runs the NATO-led force remaining in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that he recommended revamping the U.S. plan for leaving as few as 1,000 troops beyond 2016 in light of renewed Taliban fighting, al Qaeda presence and Islamic State gains there.
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“As a result, I’ve put forward recommendations to adjust this new environment while addressing our core missions: train, advise and assist the Afghan security forces and conduct counter-terrorism operations to protect the homeland,” Campbell told the committee on Oct. 6.
The White House had said a review has been underway for months and that Obama’s decision would be based on the country’s national security needs.
“[T]here continues to be a terror threat emanating from Afghanistan,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Wednesday. “It’s not on the same scale of … pre-9/11, but it’s still a risk that we do not take lightly.
“And it is important for, in the mind of the president, for the United States to preserve our counter-terrorism capabilities inside of Afghanistan — both because of the impact that would have on the stability of the central government in Afghanistan, but also because of the impact that would have on the core national security interests of the United States,” he said.
Rather than a small presence in the capital, the troops will be divided among Kabul, Bagram, Jalalabad and Kandahar, officials said.
The review began in March after Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the country’s No. 2 leader, visited Washington, the official said. Officials also stressed that no one event, such as the loss of Kunduz, tipped the scales toward leaving more troops behind.
Leaving behind an embassy-only presence would have cost $10 billion annually, according to the administration officials. The new level will cost $14.6 billion a year.
