During a visit to Denmark on Tuesday, U.S Secretary of Defense James Mattis said in NATO’s fight against Daesh they have noticed the enemy in Afghanistan has lost about two thirds of its strength, like reported by tolonews.com
Speaking at a joint press conference with Danish Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen, after the two chaired a meeting within the coalition against Daesh, Mattis said: “In this past weekend, President (Ashraf) Ghani announced the death of the emir of ISIS Khorasan (Daesh Afghanistan), the ISIS group in Nangarhar there in eastern Afghanistan. In our anti-ISIS campaign we are dealing that group one more significant blow with the loss of their leader.
“This fight will go on, as the minister said. We continue to integrate our military and our non-military efforts. We have to remember that the battlefield that we are fighting on is also a humanitarian field where innocent people live right now, sometimes forced to stay on a battlefield by ISIS,” he said.
According to him, the troops were doing everything possible, “everything humanly possible, to limit the suffering and any casualties among those innocent people.”
He also said they were committed to working together in order to defeat Daesh and that Denmark had always been a stalwart ally of the U.S and the two nations have stood by each other in good and bad times.
Frederiksen meanwhile said that Denmark was considering sending in more soldier to Afghanistan.
“We are open to increasing the number of our forces in Afghanistan if necessary, but we have not yet made the decision,” Frederiksen said the joint press conference after a meeting with Mattis.
“But I can say that we are generally positive about increasing our presence in Afghanistan,” the minister said.
Frederiksen confirmed to Danish news agency Ritzau that Denmark had received a request from the United States of America regarding the increased contribution.
“I have answered that we are looking forward to it,” he was quoted by Ritzau as saying.
“There are problems in Afghanistan, and it is important that we participate,” the minister said.
“So it is quite important that we help stabilize the situation in Afghanistan,” he added.
Denmark has provided military and humanitarian support to Afghanistan since 2002 and currently has about 160 troops and support personnel in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday night in relation to the fight against Daesh that President Donald Trump is intent on destroying the group.
“The one thing is that there is a difference between Afghanistan proper and our effort to defeat ISIS. And that’s one thing he (Trump) is also very clear on in the campaign, and as president, that he is going to do everything he can to fight radical Islamic terrorism, to root out and destroy ISIS.”
He said in reference to the U.S’s new strategy on Afghanistan that “the goal is always going to be to defeat ISIS, which is something he’s been very clear on with the American people from the get-go. But that all being said, let’s be clear, with the exception of the piece that we announced today, that the president announced yesterday, no decision has been made. So let’s not get ahead of what that ultimate policy will be.”
“The U.S. currently has about 8,400 forces in Afghanistan doing a counterterrorism operation, which is Operation Freedom Sentinel, and then the NATO mission, which is to train, advise and assist under Operation Resolute Support. The main objective of us being in Afghanistan, (is to stop the country) from being used as a safe haven for terrorists to attack the United States, and our allies. That is the main objective.”
He stated that Trump is weighing up various options in terms of overhauling the whole strategy.
“There are several things that go into a strategy. And I think the idea of just saying can we throw ‘x’ number at it, is not the way the president is looking at these options. He’s trying to figure out walk back from a goal of eliminating this threat, and then tell me how we get there. As opposed to, tell me how many troops we need and what you’re going to do with them. I think that there have been in the past some instances of just figuring, okay if we add more troops, that will help solve the problem. The president is asking to re-look at the entire strategy and then figure out what the footprint is in a variety of ways to get there.”
This comes after reports emerged last week that the Trump administration is considering sending in addition troops into Afghanistan.
