July 26, 2019
The US chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford arrived in Kabul on July 24, 2019 for consultations with US, NATO and Afghan officials, US Department of Defense said in a statement.
Dunford said negotiations with the Taliban have not changed the military mission in Afghanistan.
“Day to day, the mission hasn’t changed for General Miller and the team, and they are still taking the fight to the Taliban and supporting the Afghan military,” Dunford said.
He said he wants to ensure Army Gen. Austin S. Miller, the commander of the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, has all he needs.
The US general said he wanted to take the pulse of operations in the country in advance of the national elections in September. The Afghans were holding a “rehearsal of concept” for the elections as he arrived.
“That is clearly a big priority for them, [and they are] making sure they have everything in place,” Dunford told reporters traveling with him.
The US Department of Defense has said in a report that the part of the “problem is that the Taliban are not a monolithic entity, but rather a group of groups with different degrees of ideological purity and different goals.”
“Some Taliban groups may work with the government. Others take a more hardline approach. Some want all foreign troops out immediately. Others will take a conditions-based approach,” it said.
The Afghan military is taking the fight to the Taliban to show them they cannot win on the battlefield, according to US Department of Defense report.
The NATO coalition is working to train the Afghan military and police, the report says.
This come as US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is also in Kabul, holding discussions with Afghan leaders and politicians.
Source: TOLO news
Disclaimer: Views expressed on this blog are not necessarily endorsed or supported by the Afghan Studies Center and Center for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad.
