Alwaght- American Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel, said its country will keep as many as 1,000 more troops in Afghanistan than planned for the first part of 2015, Guardian reported.
At a joint news conference at the presidential palace with President Ashraf Ghani, Hagel said the original plan to cut American troop levels to 9,800 by the end of this year had been abandoned, but not because of a recent surge in Taliban attacks .
Hagel said the America will keep up to 10,800 troops for the first few months of next year and then restart the drawdown, which is scheduled to reach 5,500 troops by the end of 2015 .
America decided to keep additional forces in the country temporarily because planned troop commitments by America's allies for a NATO train-and-assist mission starting in January have been slow to materialize .
Barack Obama “has provided US military commanders the flexibility to manage any temporary force shortfall that we might experience for a few months as we allow for coalition troops to arrive in theater,” he said. “But the president’s authorization will not change our troops’ missions, or the long-term timeline for our drawdown,” he added.
Hagel arrived in Kabul on a previously unannounced trip one day after Obama declared he would nominate one of Hagel’s former deputies, Ashton Carter, to succeed Hagel, who resigned under pressure 24 November .
Hagel, on his fourth trip to Afghanistan as defense secretary, said it should not be surprising that the Taliban are still able to launch significant attacks in the capital .
“I have confidence in the Afghan security forces that they will continue to meet these challenges,” he said .
The America-led war in Afghanistan has lasted far longer than anyone predicted at the outset in October 2001, and the final result, after more than 2,200 US deaths, remains in doubt even as Obama officially ends the US combat mission 31 December .
At the peak in 2010-2011 the US had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. The Americans have fought alongside troops from a coalition of countries, including Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy, Denmark, Turkey and Poland .
About 9,800 US troops are to remain after this year as part of a NATO mission, dubbed Resolute Support, to train and assist Afghan security forces and to carry out counter-terrorism missions. The US troop total is to shrink further to 5,500 by the end of next year but the pace of the decline is yet to be decided .
