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Obama Considers leave significant force in Afghanistan
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US President Barack Obama is investigating a proposal to keep 5,000 troops in Afghanistan, an American senior official said.
A top US official declared that President Obama is considering leaving up to 5,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016, diverging from his initial plan to scale back American forces by the time he leaves the White House.
Gen. Martin Dempsey before stepping down from his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on August introduced his new plan to focus on keeping 5,000 troops force primarily on counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State, al-Qaida and other direct threats to the United States.
Obama has not yet accepted nor rejected the proposal, but some officials say that the president plans to make a decision on it sometime soon.
Dempsey’s plan, however, has been the primary focus of White House debates in recent weeks.
It also envisions the United States maintaining a few bases, perhaps two or three that could be used as “lily pads” to launch strikes against groups that threaten the United States, senior defense and administration officials said.
Since Dempsey introduced the plan, the Taliban took control of the city of Kunduz. Though U.S. advisers have helped Afghan forces retake most of the city, the incident indicates that Afghan forces may not be strong enough to hold their ground against the Taliban when the U.S. leaves the country.
The new plan would mark a major shift for the president, who appears to have abandoned his goal of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now searching for some “acceptable equilibrium, some minimal level of involvement, that avoids catastrophic reversals,” said James Dobbins, who served as Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2013 and 2014.
After hearing the initial proposal, Obama told his commander that he was open to keeping more troops in Afghanistan but wanted Dempsey to bring him a more detailed blueprint, senior administration and defense officials said.
Obama asked military commanders to work with intelligence officials to give him a better sense of the potential threat the Islamic State and al-Qaida posed in the region over the coming years.
The president also wanted a more detailed cost assessment of Dempsey’s proposal and the number of troops and civilians needed to support it.
While the Obama administration has been focusing on Dempsey’s plan, Gen. John Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has also developed multiple options for leaving forces in Afghanistan beyond 2016, one of which involves keeping 7,000 U.S. troops in the region.
As many as 80 traffic accidents occurred across Afghanistan on the last day of Ramadan and the three days of Eid-ul-Fitr, resulting in 30 deaths and 155 injuries, the General Directorate of Traffic of the Ministry of Interior Affairs has announced.
It said in a statement that the number of traffic accidents during Eid this year has decreased compared to last year, as there were 98 accidents during Eid last year, leaving 50 dead and 185 injured.
The statement said that the fatalities in traffic accidents during Eid this year include 19 men, 2 women and 9 children.
The injured include 117 men, 8 women and 30 children.
More international support is desperately needed for mine action in Afghanistan, which is one of one of the countries on earth that is most impacted by the explosive remnants of war, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, said on Friday.
Marking the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, UNAMA said on X that over decades of conflict, tens of thousands of ordinary Afghans have lost their lives or limbs because of landmines and unexploded ordnance, adding that most of the victims today are children.
“Mine clearance work is painstaking, dangerous, and costly. Education to prevent accidents, and rehabilitation for those left with disabilities is also essential,” UNAMA said.
UNAMA called for more international support to Afghanistan, saying it “saves lives, and serves as an investment in a safer, more stable, and prosperous future for Afghanistan.”
In 2024, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recorded that there were 434 children among those injured or killed in 251 incidents linked to diverse forms of explosive ordnance. This accounts for over 76 percent of the total number of recorded casualties.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has proposed that Afghan refugees be granted permanent residence in Pakistan.
This comes as the Pakistani government is deporting Afghan refugees citing security concerns.
There are currently 2.1 million registered Afghan migrants in Pakistan, more than half of them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistani officials have repeatedly claimed that attacks in the country are planned on Afghan soil and that Afghan citizens have been involved in a number of attacks. The Islamic Emirate, however, has denied the claim, saying Afghanistan is not responsible for Pakistan’s “security failure”.
While the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has called for permanent residence for Afghan refugees, its governor, Faisal Karim Kundi, has criticized the statement as “absurd.”
Kundi said the current security crisis in Pakistan is deeply linked to Afghanistan and 70 percent of recent attacks in Pakistan have been planned on Afghan soil.
He also claimed that weapons left over from foreign forces in Afghanistan are now being used against Pakistan, a claim the Islamic Emirate has previously denied.
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