NATO: Keep Afghan Troop Levels Stable

NATO: Keep Afghan Troop Levels Stable

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- NATO allies agreed Saturday to maintain a stable military presence in Afghanistan, bolstered by President Barack Obama's decision to make a smaller cut in U.S. troop levels than planned.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the allies also made commitments to continue to fund the Afghan security forces through 2020 and are "close to" the needed $5 billion per year.

"We are very close and I am certain we will reach that level," Stoltenberg told reporters following a meeting on Afghanistan on the second day of a NATO summit. A senior U.S. administration official said NATO has commitments for about 90 percent of the goal.

Obama has been urging NATO leaders gathered in Warsaw to expand their support for the war against the Taliban. Meanwhile, violence in the U.S. led him to cut his Europe trip short so he can return home Sunday.

The U.S. has pledged to provide $3.5 billion annually to fund Afghan forces, and the government in Kabul is expected to contribute as much as $500 million. Allies would provide the remaining $1 billion. The funding would maintain a total of 352,000 Afghan Army troops and police officers.

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Stoltenberg said it's too soon to say exactly how many troops allies will agree to keep in Afghanistan under NATO's Resolute Support training and advisory mission. But he said he believed that, based on commitments made Saturday, force levels will remain largely stable. Specific numbers will be finalized this fall, he said.

U.S. administration officials said they believe the number of forces dedicated to the NATO mission will be a bit more than 12,000, and the U.S. has pledged about 6,700 of that total. The officials were not authorized to discuss the details publicly, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Earlier this week, Obama announced that overall he would keep 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, rather than cut their numbers to 5,500 as he had once planned. In addition to taking part in the NATO advisory-and-assist mission, the U.S. has special operations forces in the country that conduct counterterrorism missions.

The planned force levels allow NATO allies to remain in regional hubs around Afghanistan, with Germany in the north, Italy in the west, Turkey in the capital of Kabul and the United States in the east and south.

The Warsaw summit, NATO's first in two years, is considered by many to be the alliance's most important since the Cold War. Stoltenberg says NATO, founded in 1949, needs to adapt to confront an array of new threats to its member nations' security, including cyberattacks and violent extremism sparked by radical Muslim organizations like the Islamic State group.

On Friday, NATO leaders approved the deployment of four multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic states to deter Russia, as well as a Romanian-Bulgarian brigade for the Black Sea region. Germany will lead a multinational battalion in Lithuania, with similar battalions to be led by the United States in Poland, Britain in Estonia and Canada in Latvia.

Those moves were strongly criticized Saturday by Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president during the Cold War.

"NATO has begun preparations for escalating from the Cold War into a hot one," Gorbachev was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "All the rhetoric in Warsaw just yells of a desire almost to declare war on Russia. They only talk about defense, but actually are preparing for offensive operations."

The White House, meanwhile, announced Obama would cut his Europe trip short by one day in the wake of the attack in Dallas that killed five police officers and wounded seven others during protests over fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana.

Obama will attend meetings in Warsaw on Saturday before heading to Spain for meetings with Spanish leaders and a visit with U.S. troops.

He returns to Washington on Sunday and will visit Dallas early next week at the request of Mayor Mike Rawlings.

(KA)

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