NATO military officials are reportedly looking at slowing their withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan to bolster that country’s government amid a surge in extremist attacks.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that U.S. Army Gen. John Campbell, commander of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, has submitted five different that include halting or slowing the plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country by the end of 2016.
The U.S. has 6,827 troops in Afghanistan as part of a 13,200-strong NATO mission to support Kabul’s fight against the Taliban and other extremist groups.
But violence has surged since the end of July, when the 2013 death of longtime Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar was revealed. The violence has soured relations between Kabul and Islamabad, which it blames for sheltering the Taliban.
Republican lawmakers have been pressing the Obama administration for months to revisit its plan, citing the resurgence of extremist forces such as the Islamic State in Iraq in the wake of the withdrawal of all U.S. troops at the end of 2011. The Islamic State has also emerged in Afghanistan, adding a wild card to the mix of extremist forces in that country.
“After pulling out of Iraq against the advice of our military leaders, the president’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan would risk a replay of that failure,” Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said Tuesday at a hearing on U.S. strategy in the Middle East.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the Wall Street Journal that a U.S. decision would guide those of other alliance members.
“We are assessing this very carefully in the alliance. The U.S. is key because it is by far the largest contributor to NATO’s operations in Afghanistan,” he said. “Exactly how we shape the different elements and when we move to different phases, all that remains to be decided. But we have to make decisions in the not too far future.”
