The US military has launched its first airstrikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan since US President Barack Obama’s decision earlier this month to expand US involvement against the insurgents, US officials said on Friday.
Officials said the strikes began in the past week and were against Taliban targets in the southern part of the country.
However, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook declined to provide any details, citing “operational security.”
One senior US official said that there have been “a couple” of airstrikes, but the US does not want to provide more information because there might be more strikes in that area, including missions with Afghan forces who could be accompanied by US advisers.
The official was not authorized to discuss the operations publicly, so spoke on condition of anonymity.
The US military spokesman in Kabul, Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, said US forces “have conducted a limited number of strikes under these new authorities,” but it is “too early to quantify the effects achieved.”
The strikes “are only being used where they may help the Afghans achieve a strategic effect,” Cleveland said.
US officials made it clear when they announced the new authority to hit Taliban targets once again that they would only be used in selective operations that were deemed to have a strategic and important effect on the fight.
Cook said the strikes “hit their intended targets.”
He added that the strikes were “part of an ongoing operation that, again, the goal of which would be a strategic effect on behalf of the Afghan forces that we are enabling, and that’s exactly what they were intended to be used for.”
Pressed for more details, Cook refused, saying “these are ongoing operations” and he does not want to be “telegraphing what’s to come to the enemy.”
The war in Afghanistan began in 2001, and the US has been conducting a broad range of operations there ever since.
Obama decided early last month to expand the US’ involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the US military wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground.
Since all foreign combat troops pulled out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014, leaving only an advisory and training contingent of international forces behind, the Afghan military has struggled in leading the fight against the Taliban and other militants.
The remaining 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan are scheduled to be reduced to 5,500 by the end of this year, but Washington has yet to decide the pace of that decline.
One factor in determining future troop levels is the extent to which NATO allies are willing to remain involved in training and advising the Afghans.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in