The biggest challenge to stabilizing Afghanistan remains the sanctuaries in Pakistan that shelter militants fighting the US-led coalition, said US President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead allied forces in the 17-year-old war.
Ten months into the Trump-approved strategy that added as many as 4,000 US troops and approved more aggressive action against the Taliban, Pakistan’s actions remain “contradictory,” US Army Lieutenant General Austin Miller told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
“We should have high expectations that they are part of the solution, not just diplomatically, but from a security standpoint as well,” he said.
In written answers, Miller said Pakistan has made “many sacrifices” and “its security forces have fought bravely,” but “we have not yet seen these counterterrorism efforts against anti-Pakistan militants translate into definitive actions against Afghan Taliban or Haqqani leaders residing in Pakistan.”
Trump has been equally vocal in the past about Pakistan, saying in August last year that “we can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to the region.”
Miller is a battle-hardened veteran who as a captain led a ground assault during the October 1993 Black Hawk Down fight in Mogadishu, Somalia, and was awarded the Bronze Star.
He is now head of the Joint Special Operations Command, the unit of elite US commando forces conducting counterterror operations in Afghanistan.
Miller, who appears headed for quick approval by the Senate, is to be executing the Trump-backed Pentagon strategy that abandons any public timeline for withdrawing about 14,000 US troops, and assigns them to work more closely to train and assist Afghan troops, down to combat-unit levels.
“The focus of military operations in 2018 is supporting secure and credible elections,” Miller said. “In 2019 and beyond, the improved leadership and increased offensive capability should result in improved battlefield performance to compel” the Taliban into political reconciliation, he said.
Miller said in his written answers that a ceasefire declared by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani — and honored by the Taliban for three days before they returned to combat — was “an unprecedented moment in this long war.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion