Alaska:
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated on Saturday that the Afghan safety forces’ 1st job was to make sure they could slow the Taliban’s momentum prior to attempting to retake territory, as Afghan forces program to consolidate forces about strategically essential components of the nation.
Reuters reported that Afghanistan’s military is overhauling its war approach against the Taliban to concentrate forces about the most important places like Kabul and other cities, border crossings and very important infrastructure.
“They are consolidating their forces around the key population centers,” Austin told reporters throughout a check out to Alaska.
“In terms of whether or not it will stop the Taliban, I think the first thing to do is to make sure that they can slow the momentum,” Austin stated, speaking as the U.S. military is set to finish its mission in Afghanistan on Aug. 31, on orders from President Joe Biden.
Austin added that he believed the Afghans had the capability and the capacity to make progress, but “we’ll see what happens.”
The politically perilous approach seems to be a military necessity as more than-stretched Afghan troops attempt to stop the loss of provincial capitals, which could deeply fracture the nation.
Taliban insurgents are gaining handle of more and more territory, which the Pentagon estimated on Wednesday now extends to more than half of half Afghanistan’s district centers. The Taliban are also placing stress on the outskirts of half of the provincial capitals, attempting to isolate them.
The Taliban’s swift territorial gains are rattling Afghans just as the United States withdraws from a war that succeeded in punishing al Qaeda following its Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington but failed to provide something close to peace for Afghanistan.
The United States has continued to carry out air strikes to assistance Afghan government forces that have been below stress from the Taliban as U.S.-led foreign forces carry out the final stages of their withdrawal from the nation.
Biden has promised to provide economic help to Afghan forces and to redouble diplomatic efforts to revive stalled peace talks.
Biden on Friday authorized up to $one hundred million from an emergency fund to meet “unexpected urgent” refugee requirements stemming from the circumstance in Afghanistan, such as for Afghan unique immigration visa applicants.
For years, the U.S. military has been attempting to get Afghan troops off of far-flung checkpoints – static positions that can conveniently be overrun by Taliban forces.
(This story has not been edited by TheSpuzz employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)