European
allies will tell U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on Thursday they are
willing to help step up NATO's mission in Afghanistan - but only if the United
States is
clear on its strategy, diplomats said.
The United
States wants to send 3,000-5,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and other NATO
members might send around 1,200.
While no
decisions have been made, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said U.S.
allies would send more troops to help Afghans "break the stalemate"
with resurgent Taliban rebels.
As part of
the broader efforts, Britain will send just under 100 additional troops
Secretary of Defense Michael Fallon said as he arrived for a meeting of his
NATO counterparts.
"We are
in it for the long haul, it's a democracy that has asked for our help and it is
important that Europe responds," Fallon said.
"Transnational
terror groups that operate in Afghanistan are a threat to us in Western Europe
and to the continued existence of the Afghan state."
NATO leads
some 13,450 multinational troops in Afghanistan, who are training the country's
armed forces. About 8,400 are U.S. personnel, some 6,900 of whom come under the
NATO command structure.
Fifteen
members and partners of the military alliance have said they will contribute
more troops and equipment to the training mission for 2018, following a
closed-door meeting of military planners this month.
"This
is nothing like a surge, this is well within the bounds of what is feasible
politically," a senior NATO diplomat said, citing a willingness to meet
U.S. President Donald Trump's demands that the alliance do more to fight
Islamist militants.
A decision
by NATO allies to send more troops would reflect alarm about territorial gains
by Taliban rebels and military and civilian casualties.
However,
diplomats said everything hung on the Afghan strategy being devised by Mattis,
who will address NATO defense ministers later on Thursday, partly because many
allies depend on U.S. equipment to be able to carry out their training.
"We
need clarity from the United States," a second NATO diplomat said.
Some
diplomats expressed frustration that the process had dragged out months, saying
they had been repeatedly promised the new U.S. strategy, firstly by the NATO
leaders' meeting in May in Brussels and then by Thursday's defense ministers'
meeting.
"The
confusion in Washington has had an impact," a third diplomat said.
"HOW WE
END THIS WAR"
The concern
about delay extends beyond Brussels. In Washington, Republican Senator John
McCain recently scolded Mattis during a televised Senate hearing.
"It
makes it hard for us to support you when we don't have a strategy," McCain
said.
U.S. and
allied forces have been fighting for nearly 16 years against Taliban Islamists
who harbored al Qaeda militants behind the attacks on New York and Washington
in September 2001.
For Mattis,
the NATO trip will bring him one step closer to an expected mid-July finish
line for his long-awaited Afghan war plan, which he hopes will break a
stalemate in America's longest war and eventually bring it to a successful
conclusion.
Speaking to
reporters during his flight to Europe, he said he would brief allies about the
U.S. assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and his efforts to fill in
"any gaps left in the strategy".
He declined
to say how many troops he expected from NATO allies.
Mattis said
he aimed to return to Washington to "finish out some things" in
consultation with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General
Joseph Dunford, who just returned from Afghanistan, and Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson.
"And
then we'll present to the president a strategy that's been informed by our
allies, to include Afghanistan of course, and given a framework that is
regional in nature and focuses on: how we end this war," he said.
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