News Brief — Oct 15, 2015

A NATO soldier near Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014.

President Obama has just announced that U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan beyond 2016.

There are currently 9,800 U.S. service personnel in the country and there were supposed to be less than half that number by the end of the year. The change in the withdrawal timetable means that most will remain through to 2017 and maybe beyond.

The change in the scheduled withdrawal means that America’s longest war is set to drag on even longer. By contrast Vietnam, the next longest running conflict involving U.S. forces lasted just over a decade, from March 1965 to May 1975.

U.S. forces entered Afghanistan and ousted the then ruling Taliban in October 2001, 15 years ago to the month, and the conflict shows no sign of coming to an end.

If anything a revitalised Taliban have stepped up their campaign as the planned Coalition withdrawal deadline loomed.

The deteriorating security situation in the country is thought to prompted the change in the withdrawal timetable. Taliban fighters recently seized the northern provincial capitol of Kunduz, raising questions over whether the Afghan government would be able to stay in control once the Western Coalition forces had completed their withdrawal.

Earlier this months U.S. and NATO officials said they were reconsidering the withdrawal schedule and would be making their recommendations in due course.

President Obama had previously said he planned to reduce the number of troops left in Afghanistan to about 1,000 by the time he left office in January 2017. Now there will be nearly ten thousand U.S. servicemen and women still in the country when he leaves office early next year. Ed.