LONDON: NATO is assessing a request from the alliance’s military authorities to send more troops to Afghanistan and will make a decision on the scale and scope of the mission within weeks, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.
The request for what Stoltenberg said was “about a few thousand” more troops reflects the West’s alarm about the worsening security situation in Afghanistan, territorial gains by Taliban militants and military and civilian casualties.
“We are now assessing that request. We will make decisions on the scale and scope of the mission within weeks but this is not about returning back to a combat operation in Afghanistan,” he said after meeting British Prime Minister Theresa May.
NATO already has some 13,450 troops in Afghanistan, including about 6,900 US military personnel, who are training the Afghan armed forces to eventually take over the country’s defense and security and Stoltenberg stressed that any new arrivals would not be in a combat role.
“It will continue to be a train, assist and advise operation,” he added.
A decision could be taken by NATO defense ministers in June, according to an alliance official. The NATO leaders summit in Brussels on May 25 was probably too soon, the official said.
Almost 16 years since the United States tried to topple Afghanistan’s Taliban, who had harbored Al-Qaeda militants behind attacks on New York and Washington, the West remains entangled in an effort to stabilize a country facing resurgent rebels.
Facing public fatigue at the long-running conflict, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has sought to progressively reduce its presence in the country by building up the country’s armed forces, notably creating an Afghan air force.
However, loss of territory to Taliban and Islamic militants, a rise in civilian casualties and a fall in the number of Afghan security forces have led the US administration under President Donald Trump to review Afghanistan policy.
Over the past 18 months, Taliban insurgents have twice succeeded in seizing the northern town center of Kunduz for brief periods and the latest fighting underscores the challenge Afghan forces face to quell the insurgency.
According to the United Nations, 583,000 people fled their homes due to conflict in 2016, the highest number of displacements since records began in 2008.
US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster visited Kabul in April to assess the situation, days after the US military dropped one of the largest conventional weapons ever used in combat during an operation against Daesh militants in eastern Afghanistan.
“I strongly believe that the best answer we have to terrorism, the best weapon against terrorism, is to train local forces to fight terrorism, to stabilize their own country,” Stoltenberg said.
NATO assessing request for more troops to Afghanistan
NATO assessing request for more troops to Afghanistan
Lawsuit challenges Trump administration’s ending of protections for Somalis
- The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
BOSTON: Immigrant rights advocates filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to stop US President Donald Trump’s administration from next week ending legal protections that allow nearly 1,100 Somalis to live and work in the United States. The lawsuit, brought by four Somalis and two advocacy groups, challenges the US Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants, whom Trump has derided in public remarks. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in January announced that TPS for Somalis would end on March 17, arguing that Somalia’s conditions had improved, despite fighting continuing between Somali forces and Al-Shabab militants. The plaintiffs, who include the groups African Communities Together and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, in the lawsuit filed in Boston federal court argue the move was procedurally flawed and driven by a discriminatory, predetermined agenda.
The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
The plaintiffs said the administration is ending TPS for Somalia and other countries due to unconstitutional bias against non-white immigrants, not based on objective assessments of country conditions.
“The termination of TPS for Somalia is racism masking as immigration policy,” Omar Farah, executive director at the legal group Muslim Advocates, said in a statement.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said TPS was “never intended to be a de facto amnesty program.”
TPS is a form of humanitarian immigration protection that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work. Under Noem, DHS has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries, sparking legal challenges. The administration on Saturday announced plans to pursue an appeal at the US Supreme Court in order to end TPS for over 350,000 Haitians. It also wants the high court to allow it to end TPS for about 6,000 Syrians.
SOMALI COMMUNITY TARGETED
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, with its latest extension in 2024. About 1,082 Somalis currently hold TPS, and 1,383 more have pending applications, according to DHS. Somalis in Minnesota in recent months had become a target of Trump’s immigration crackdown, with officials pointing to a fraud scandal in which many people charged come from the state’s large Somali community. The Trump administration cited those fraud allegations as a basis for a months-long immigration enforcement surge in Democratic-led Minnesota, during which about 3,000 immigration agents were deployed, spurring protests and leading to the killing of two US citizens by federal agents.
In November, Trump announced he would end TPS for Somalis in Minnesota, and a month later said he wanted them sent “back to where they came from.”
The US Department of State advises against traveling to Somalia, citing crime and civil unrest among numerous factors.
