KABUL — The United States and Afghanistan are nearing an agreement to rewrite key aspects of their plan for ending U.S. military involvement in the war against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters here, U.S. and Afghan officials said Saturday.
In a joint appearance, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said they are rethinking the pace of the U.S. military withdrawal, the scope and frequency of U.S. counterterrorism raids and whether they should keep U.S. bases open longer than projected.
Although they declined to offer more specifics, they indicated that a new deal could be reached as soon as next month, when Ghani is scheduled to visit Washington to meet with President Barack Obama.
Afghan officials and U.S. military commanders have previously acknowledged pressing Obama for more leeway in determining how quickly the remaining 10,600 U.S. service members in Afghanistan are withdrawn over the next two years. But the comments Saturday by Ghani and Carter were the clearest sign yet that changes are afoot.
“President Obama is considering a number of options to reinforce our support for President Ghani’s security strategy, including possible changes to the timeline for our drawdown of U.S. troops,” Carter said. “Our priority now is to make sure this progress sticks.”
The U.S. military ended conventional combat operations
on Dec. 31. American troops remain in the country to train and advise about 350,000 Afghan security forces in their fight against the Taliban.
U.S. troop levels are currently scheduled to dwindle to 5,500 by the end of this year and to drop to zero by the time Obama leaves office in early 2017, except for a small residual force based at the large U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul.
U.S. military commanders, however, have sought more flexibility in drawing down troop levels over that period, as well as broader latitude to conduct counterterrorism raids and airstrikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets.
Ghani said he was “gratified” by a recent Obama directive that temporarily kept an extra 1,100 service members in Afghanistan. But he indicated he would not try to lobby Obama to change his mind about completing the U.S. military pullout by the end of his term, saying he “respected” Obama’s decision.
“Our relationship is not defined by the number of troops, but by the comprehensive nature of the partnership,” he added.
Carter took office as defense secretary less than a week ago but said this was his 10th visit to Afghanistan during his long career as a Pentagon official.
Standing next to Ghani at the Afghan presidential palace, Carter called counterterrorism a “continuing preoccupation.” Carter shied from giving specifics, but other U.S. officials noted the recent emergence of a small number of Afghan militants allying themselves with the Islamic State movement based in Syria and Iraq.
