Trump Considers Afghanistan Army Surge
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
May 9, 2017
After already escalating the fight in Afghanistan last month by dropping its GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB or “mother of all bombs”), the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, and engaging in a 3-hour gunfight this past weekend that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Sheikh Abdul Hasib, Trump is apparently considering whether to once again expand U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
According to the Washington Post, the new plan, which still needs the approval of the president, calls for expanding the U.S. military role as part of a broader effort to push an increasingly confident and resurgent Taliban back to the negotiating table, U.S. officials said.
The plan comes at the end of a sweeping policy review built around the president’s desire to reverse worsening security in Afghanistan and “start winning” again, said one U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The new strategy, which has the backing of top Cabinet officials, would authorize the Pentagon, not the White House, to set troop numbers in Afghanistan and give the military far broader authority to use airstrikes to target Taliban militants. It would also lift Obama-era restrictions that limited the mobility of U.S. military advisers on the battlefield.
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