Senior administration officials announced that President Barack Obama has decided to keep 5,500 U.S. troops across Afghanistan into 2017, ending his original plans of bringing home most American forces from the Middle Eastern country before the end of his term.
A senior administration official stated the president’s decision came after an “extensive months-long review” along with regular discussions between U.S. commanders in the field, the national security team, and Afghanistan’s leaders.
The new plan slows the pace of the reduction of American forces in the war-torn country. An anonymous official reported that the current U.S. force 9,800 will be staying in Afghanistan through “most of 2016.” After 2016, the remaining troops will focus on training and advising the Afghan army. The U.S. will also continue to using drones and Special Operations forces to strike al-Qaeda and other forces who may be plotting attacks against the United States.
The decision comes after Taliban forces took control of the northern city of Kunduz approximately two weeks ago, causing a major battle with Afghan forces on the ground and U.S. airstrikes supporting them.
NATO special forces have joined Afghan forces in their attempt to retake the city of Kunduz which fell into Taliban control on Monday.
The heavily assailed airport, which sits on a hilltop a few miles outside Kunduz, is now the only place held by the Afghan army. The nearby Bala Hisar fort fell when soldiers there ran out of ammunition, deputy provincial governor Hamdullah Daneshi said. Thousands of troops have fled to the airport during the intense fighting over the last two days.
U.S. special forces had been advising Afghan troops while operating from a temporary base at the Kunduz airport for several weeks, according to a special forces commander.
Coalition spokesman Col. Brian Tribus gave few details about the foreign troops’ engagement with insurgents while supporting Afghan forces overnight, including the troops’ nationalities. Although the U.S. and NATO have officially handed over the battle against the Taliban to Afghan forces, the terms of their mission allows them to fight when they come under direct threat.
That happened early Wednesday morning when a team of U.S. special forces “encountered an insurgent threat in the vicinity of the Kunduz airport at approximately 1 am, 30 September,” Tribus told Reuters, adding that the soldier had acted in self-defense. “When they encountered the threat, they defended themselves,” he said.
In an attempt to regain Kunduz from the Taliban in Afghanistan, military officials announced airstrikes that were launched on Tuesday.
U.S. Army Col. Brian Tribus, spokesman for the U.S. and NATO missions in Afghanistan, said the strike was carried out “in order to eliminate a threat to the force.”
Afghanistan troops were amassed outside Kunduz in an effort to take back the city that had fallen to the Taliban on Monday.
President Ashraf Ghani stated in a televised address to the nation, that the military launched a counter-offensive on the city, with security forces “retaking government buildings … and reinforcements, including special forces and commandos are either there or on their way there.”
“The enemy has sustained heavy casualties,” said Ghani, who marked his first anniversary in office on Tuesday. He urged his nation to trust Afghan troops and not give in to “fear and terror.”
Many analysts and officials predict a very difficult time in the fight ahead. Taliban have control of many of the roads to the city which make supply runs and reinforcing troops quite challenging as well as the fact that the Taliban has infiltrated residential areas which make airstrikes and the use of heavy weapons quite costly.
Islamic terrorists attacked the mosque at a Pakistani Air Base near Peshawar, leaving at least 29 people dead.
Pakistani Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa told reporters that at least 13 of the terrorists were killed in the assault. One of those killed by the terrorists was an Army captain.
“We were offering prayers when we first heard the gunshots and then, within no time, they entered the mosque where they began indiscriminately firing,” Mohammad Ikram of the Pakistani Air Force told Reuters by telephone from a hospital bed where he was being treated for gunshot wounds.
“They killed and injured most of the worshippers. I fell on the ground. Then the gunmen went to other places in the base. After a long time, we were shifted to the hospital.”
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack by releasing a statement and video showing Omar Mansoor, the terrorist commander who planned the massacre at a Peshawar school in December, waving goodbye to the terrorists who carried out the attack.
The base was established in the 1950s by the United States as an outpost to monitor communications by the Soviet Union.
The Taliban has raided a prison in Afghanistan and released hundreds of terrorist operatives.
Officials in Ghazni said a terrorist unit attacked the city prison early Monday morning around 2:30 a.m. A car bomb exploded at the prison’s entrance and then at least six terrorists stormed the building using rocket powered grenades.
Three of the terrorists were killed in the prison break while four police officers were killed. Two of the dead terrorists were reported by Reuters to be suicide bombers who detonated the car.
The siege of the prison lasted for several hours.
The raid is the third major prison break by the Taliban in the last three years. The Taliban announced major offensive against government positions in April.
“In this operation, 400 of our innocent countrymen were freed … and were taken to mujahedin-controlled areas,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement taking responsibility for the attack.
The Afghani government said that 148 of those who escaped the prison were “threats to national security.”
He may have died in 2013, but officials in Afghanistan are now confirming for the first time that the leader of the Taliban is dead.
Afghani President Ashraf Ghani released a statement Wednesday citing “credible information” that the one-eyed Omar died in a Karachi, Pakistan hospital in April 2013.
“The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, based on credible information, confirms that Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban died in April 2013 in Pakistan,” the statement said. “The government of Afghanistan believes that grounds for the Afghan peace talks are more paved now than before, and thus calls on all armed opposition groups to seize the opportunity and join the peace process.”
Omar had been suffering from liver and kidney issues. Afghani Security Services spokesman Abdul Hassib Seddiqi told the BBC Omar died from health problems.
Several U.S. intelligence officials said they had long believed Omar to have died because of the fractured nature within the current Taliban.
“I’ve tended to believe the rumors that he was dead since the serious splits started in the Taliban,” one official told CNN. “If he were alive, he wouldn’t allow these rumors to continue to threaten the movement’s unity to this degree. He would risk some small exposure to invalidate the rumors, and he has not done that despite incredible internal demands that he do so.”
Analysts are now concerned the official announcement of Omar’s death will spur ISIS to try and gain a foothold among the Taliban supporters in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Three Afghani girls, aged between 16 and 18, are recovering after Islamists threw acid into their faces because they were attending school.
Two of the girls remain in critical condition at Harat’s Noor hospital according to an official who spoke with CNN.
Two men approached the girls on motorcycles while they were walking to school. They told the girls as they threw the acid that it was their punishment for going to school. The attackers are still at large and a provincial police chief told reporters they were working hard to find them.
The girls attended one of the biggest girl’s schools in the provincial capital.
Islamic terror groups like the Taliban are against women receiving education. The United Nations reported that only 12 percent of Afghani women are literate.
In the past, militants have reported being paid large sums of money by the Taliban for carrying out acid attacks on young girls. In a 2008 attack, the captured attackers told police they were paid $1,265 by Taliban officials in Pakistan for crossing into Afghanistan to make the attack.
The Taliban forbid women from gaining any education during their rule of Afghanistan.
The Islamic extremist group Taliban has claimed responsibility for a terror attack that left three American contractors dead.
The group release a statement Friday claiming one of their members had infiltrated the Afghanistan security forces and launched the attack Thursday night at Kabul International Airport.
“Yesterday in the evening he managed to get to a crowd of invading and infidel American military forces where he turned his gun towards them and opened fire,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Majahid said. “During the gun battle, Ehsanullah was also killed by the enemy.”
Majahid said the terrorist had been “waiting a long time” for a chance to strike a target like a group of Americans. The terrorist had been in an Afghan army uniform before his attack.
The attack was the first major violence in the country’s capital city in almost three weeks.
The Pakistan government has announced plans to execute 500 convicted terrorists in response to the Taliban’s killing of 133 children and 15 teachers at an Army Public School in Peshawar.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had announced last week the government was lifting a moratorium on the death penalty in terrorism related cases. Reports say that at least six terrorists have already been hung.
“Interior ministry has finalized the cases of 500 convicts who have exhausted all the appeals, their mercy petitions have been turned down by the president and their executions will take place in coming weeks,” an unnamed source told AFP news agency.
Pakistan officials said the attack on the school was their own country’s 9/11.
The United Nations has spoken out against Pakistan ending the moratorium on the death penalty for convicted terrorists.
The terrorists were unrepentant, releasing a video saying they will continue to kill children if any of the terrorists children are killed by military action against them.
A vigil was held outside the White House for the 132 children and nine staff members murdered by the Taliban in an Pakistan school.
Visitors to the vigil included the deputy chief of Mission at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington who said he wanted to show his country’s leadership was supportive of those standing for the memory of those children.
“I am to be with those who are here to express solidarity and support for the victims and the families of those who were killed in Peshawar,” Asad Majeed Khan told the Christian Post.
“You can see people from all colors and creeds and people with the different religions have come together in support and solidarity,” Khan asserted. “This is a message that I take also from here this evening that this is not a fight for any country in particular, this is not a particular ethnic group or a particular religion’s fight, this is a fight in which we are all together.”
Those participating held candles and a moment of silence to honor the victims. Many also held signs and banners calling for the destruction of the Taliban.
