The US has carried out at least a dozen operations — including commando raids and airstrikes — in the past three weeks against militants in Afghanistan aligned with the Islamic State (IS), expanding the Obama administration’s military campaign against the terrorist group beyond Iraq and Syria.
The operations followed US President Barack Obama’s decision last month to broaden the authority of US commanders to attack the Islamic State’s new branch in Afghanistan. The administration — which has been accused by Republicans of not having a strategy to defeat the group — is revamping plans for how it fights the terrorist organization in regions where it has developed affiliates.
Many of these recent raids and strikes in Afghanistan have been in the Tora Bora region of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country, near the border with Pakistan.
It was in Tora Bora that Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda militants took refuge during the US-led invasion in 2001, and eventually evaded capture by slipping into Pakistan.
US commanders in Afghanistan said they believed that between 90 and 100 IS militants had been killed in the recent operations.
Intelligence officials estimate that there are about 1,000 IS fighters in Nangarhar Province, and perhaps several thousand more elsewhere in the country.
However, even the generals leading the missions acknowledge that a resilient militant organization can recruit new fighters to replace those killed in US attacks.
“We have rules of engagement now that have been very well thought through,” US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said last week, adding that they “allow us to do what we think needs to be done.”
Although Obama had declared an end to combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the operations are part of a continuing and potentially expanding US military footprint in south-central Asia, the Middle East and Africa for the fight against the Islamic State.
In Iraq, the US has about 3,700 troops, including trainers, advisers and commandos. There are several dozen Special Operations forces on the ground in Syria.
Carter has said the US and its allies are looking to do more, and has asked other countries — including several Arab ones — to contribute more to the military campaign as it moves to reclaim Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the two major cities controlled by the Islamic State.
Administration officials are weighing a new campaign plan for Libya that would deepen the US’ military and diplomatic involvement on yet another front against the Islamic State. The US and its allies are increasing reconnaissance flights and intelligence collecting there — and even preparing for possible airstrikes and commando raids, according to senior US officials. Special Operations forces have met with various Libyan groups over the past several months to vet them for possible action against the IS.
In Afghanistan, US and other allied commanders fear that the combination of fighters loyal to the Taliban, the Haqqani network and the IS is proving too formidable for the still struggling Afghan security forces to combat on their own.
The US has 9,800 combat troops in Afghanistan. Although that figure is scheduled to decline to 5,500 by the time Obama leaves office, administration and military officials are privately hinting that the president may again slow the troop withdrawal later this year.
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