Pentagon Chief Assures Afghanistan of U.S. Support by Craig Nelson and Ehsanullah Amiri – Wall Street Journal
The Pentagon’s top official assured Afghanistan’s government on Monday that the U.S. wouldn’t desert the country’s security forces, the Afghan Defense Ministry said, signaling American support for the jittery government while the U.S. holds talks with the Taliban to end the country’s 17-year war.
In his first overseas trip as acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan met senior U.S. military officers and top Afghan officials, including President Ashraf Ghani, whose government has been excluded from the latest effort to negotiate a settlement of the punishing conflict. The Taliban have refused to enter talks with the Kabul administration, which they say is illegitimate.
An Afghan Defense Ministry statement in Dari and Pashto, the country’s two main languages, said Mr. Shanahan had assured Afghanistan’s acting defense minister that under a peace deal the U.S. “wouldn’t abandon Afghan forces in training and fighting terrorism.” An English version of the statement omits the pledge to the Afghan official, Asadullah Khalid…
In His First Trip to Afghanistan, Acting Defense Chief Says No Orders to Withdraw U.S. Troops by Missy Ryan – Washington Post
Acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan met with Afghan leaders in Kabul on Monday as the Trump administration made an intensified diplomatic push to end the United States’ longest war.
Shanahan, a former Boeing executive who has served in a senior Defense Department role since 2017, made his first visit to Afghanistan six weeks after he became Pentagon chief following the resignation of retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis.
Shanahan is under consideration to be nominated as Trump’s second defense secretary at a moment when the president is taking steps to end the counterterrorism wars that have dominated Pentagon activities since the 9/11 attacks.
While military leaders are proceeding with a plan to pull American troops out of Syria, ending a ground mission against the Islamic State, officials say a decision has not been reached to withdraw from Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces support local forces battling the Taliban and other militants…