U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Afghan war strategy has yet to produce “any real gains” despite a record number of bombs dropped on the Taliban and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) wing in the country, reports an expert group that covers the conflict from Kabul.
Nevertheless, U.S Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended Trump’s “conditions-based strategy” this month when testifying before a couple of congressional panels, saying that it is making definite progress.
Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster worked with the Pentagon on crafting the president’s strategy, prompting critics to note the plan appears only marginally different than what the former commander-in-chief Barack Obama pursued while he was in office.
Lt. Gen. McMaster, who reportedly purged Trump allies from the White House National Security Council while keeping holdovers from the Obama era, advocated for increasing the American military in Afghanistan as the former president did soon after taking office.
President Trump’s plan to deal with the Afghanistan war became known as “McMaster’s War.”
The lieutenant general was a driving force behind developing the new strategy at the White House, which violated Trump’s non-interventionist pledge.
According to an assessment of the 16-year-old war authored by the Carl Hanson Group with the help of former U.S. Navy SEAL Erik Prince, Trump’s strategy is not yet having an impact on the ground in Afghanistan, and the Taliban, the most prominent terrorist group in the country, continues to advance.
Meanwhile, a recent report from the United Nations shows that the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, known as the Khorasan province (IS-K), has expanded its presence from one to seven provinces and intensified its attacks over recent months.
“As part of President Trump’s new strategy for Afghanistan, the U.S. loosened its rules of engagement to relax proximity requirements for U.S. airstrikes. As a result, U.S. forces dropped more bombs on Taliban and Islamic State—Khorasan (IS-K) targets in September than in any month since 2012,” notes the Carl Hanson Group assessment.
“However, it has taken the Pentagon several weeks to actually implement the more aggressive approach, and we have yet to see any real gains for the new strategy,” it adds.
In August, President Trump unveiled his South Asia strategy, which primarily focuses on ending the war in Afghanistan.
Gen. John Nicholson, the top commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, explained that the strategy is “determined” to pressure the Taliban into a reconciliation agreement with the Kabul government by making the jihadists realize they cannot win.
President Trump noted that the United States would also pressure Pakistan to stop harboring jihadists who are fighting and killing American troops and their allies in Afghanistan, an accusation that Islamabad denies.
The Long War Journal, a component of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, reported late last month after the president announced his strategy that the Taliban controls or contests 45 percent of Afghanistan.
Using the LWJ and U.N. data, Breitbart News found that the Taliban controls more territory now than during any other time since the United States removed it from power in late 2001.
In its report, the Carl Hanson Group acknowledges that the Taliban continues to make gains, noting, “Recent videos advertised Taliban advances in Balkh, Nimroz, and Ghazni, and showed Taliban fighters flaunting stolen weapons in broad daylight, without fear of airstrikes.”
That assessment came as the U.S. Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT), which covers military activity in the Middle East and the Afghanistan region, reported that American military had bombed more Taliban and ISIS jihadists already in 2017 than during any other full year since 2012.
The AFCENT data revealed that the Trump administration had intensified the American air war against the resilient Taliban and growing ISIS branch in Afghanistan, dropping 3,328 bombs on the jihadists so far in 2017.
Nevertheless, The Carl Hanson Group argues the airstrikes have not resulted in any real gains in Afghanistan, suggesting that the Trump strategy is not working
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