The U.S. will continue to fortify the Afghanistan government against a takeover from the Taliban after the election of a new leader of the extremist group, President Obama said Thursday.
Obama, speaking to reporters in Japan, said he expects the Taliban to continue a strategy of violence following the appointment of a hardline new leader. A U.S. drone strike killed the Taliban’s previous leader in a province of Pakistan on Saturday.
“This continues to be an organization that sees violence as a strategy for obtaining its goals and moving its agenda forward in Afghanistan,” he said of the Taliban.
“Our goal right now is to make sure that the Constitution and the democratic process is upheld … [and we] maintain counter-terrorism platforms that we need in that region so that al Qaeda and now ISIL are not able to take root and use it as a base to attack us in the United State,” he said.
Obama previously called the death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour “an important milestone.”
But the Taliban’s decision to tap cleric Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, a conservative Islamic scholar, as its new chief has top U.S. defense and intelligence officials doubting that the Taliban will enter reconciliation talks with the Afghan government by the time Obama leaves office.
“My hope but not my expectation is that there comes a point that the Taliban realizes that they are not going to overrun the country – that they need to enter into serious reconciliation talks,” Obama said. “… I’m doubtful that will happen any time soon.”
