WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has accepted his Afghan counterpart’s request to delay the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, the US media reported on Sunday.

Mr Obama spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani earlier this week and discussed the US plan for reducing American forces in Afghanistan to 5,500 by the end of this year.

Mr Ghani urged the US leader to reconsider his plan as the security situation in Afghanistan did not allow such a rapid withdrawal, from more than 100,000 in the recent past to a little over 5000 this year.

After the conversation, a senior White House official told CNN that President Obama was considering whether he could “scrap his drawdown plan” for this year. But the official also said that no final decisions had been made yet.

“Presidents Obama and Ghani have had regular discussions on the security transition and peace and reconciliation processes in Afghanistan,” the official said. They also reviewed the “planning for President Ghani’s upcoming visit to Washington,” he added. President Ghani requested “some flexibility in the troop drawdown timeline and base closure sequencing over the next two years, and we are actively considering that request,” the official said.

During his first trip to Afghanistan last month, new US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said he might advise President Obama to consider slowing the drawdown of US forces from Afghanistan — partly because of better relations with the new Afghan government. Any review would be based on the reality on the ground, he added.

Gen. John Campbell, the top US commander in Afghanistan, has argued that reducing the force to 5,500 by the end of the year would disrupt efforts to train and advise the Afghan military.

In a recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Campbell warned that he had seen evidence of IS recruiting in Afghanistan while some Taliban members were breaking off and declaring allegiance to the so-called Islamic State.

“Military leaders worry that cutting the overall force to that degree would reduce support to the counter-terrorism mission” and would adversely affect US efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, Fox News reported on Sunday.

Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also has expressed concerns about a sharp drawdown this year.

During Gen. Campbell’s testimony, Senator McCain argued that a rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan would create a vacuum and “allow terrorists to foment the same disaster in Afghanistan as we have seen in Iraq — growing instability, terrorist safe havens and direct threats to the United States”.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2015

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