Dec. 16: A White House review of President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan war strategy reported on Thursday that allied forces are making headway against the Taliban and Al Qaeda but that serious challenges remain.
“In Afghanistan, the momentum achieved by the Taliban in recent years has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in some key areas, although these gains remain fragile and reversible,” an unclassified summary of the review found. “Most important, Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan is weaker and under more sustained pressure than at any other point since it fled Afghanistan in 2001,” it said.
The long-awaited review said the United States was on track to begin drawing down its troops and putting Afghan forces in the lead in 2011 even as it cited hurdles to progress, including the difficulty of rebuilding Afghanistan and the need for Pakistan’s “sustained denial” of insurgent safe havens.
Despite the cautious optimism from the White House a year after Mr Obama ordered an extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, the president must overcome scepticism on Capitol Hill and among Americans tired of the long, expensive conflict. Civilian and military casualties have reached a record high in Afghanistan this year as the Taliban insurgency expands.
Malcolm Chalmers, a professor at the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank, called the review’s tone positive.
“But there’s a lot of very difficult issues that remain, the fundamental political issues, and without addressing the fundamental political issues of Afghan governance and its relations with its neighbours, there will not be a solution to this conflict,” he said.
The review comes at the end of the bloodiest year since US-backed Afghan forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, with almost 700 foreign troops killed so far.