WASHINGTON: Washington's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan stepped down on Friday, just as the United States is preparing to send thousands more troops to the region.
A senior State Department official told AFP that acting special representative Laurel Miller left the post without a replacement being named.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Miller is returning to a position at the Rand Corporation and that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has not yet decided what to do with post.
The office was created when US officials decided that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably linked and ought to be dealt with together.
President Donald Trump came to office planning to slash diplomatic spending and Tillerson plans to cut several special envoy roles.
Miller's responsibilities will now fall under the department's South and Central Asian Affairs Bureau, which has a much bigger footprint that includes India.
But this bureau is itself leaderless, with no assistant secretary appointed to lead it and no one nominated by the new administration for Senate approval.
When news site Politico broke the news that the envoy post had gone, it cited diplomats complaining of a rushed process and a dangerous leadership vacuum.
But, also speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior official told AFP the decision was part of a broader policy review.
Tillerson thinks the issue is best handled at a regional level, the official said, arguing that it made sense to consider India part of the equation.
Trump has given the Pentagon and US commanders wide latitude to decide on the future of Washington's longest ever war -- the 16-year slog in Afghanistan.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is reportedly planning to deploy up to 5,000 extra troops to bolster efforts to train Afghan forces to repel a resurgent Taliban insurgency.
US ends role of special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan
US ends role of special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan
Russian drone attack forces power cuts in Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih, military says
- Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid
KYIV: Russian drones struck infrastructure in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday, forcing emergency power blackouts for more than 45,000 customers and disrupting heat supplies, military administration head Oleksandr Vilkul said.
“Please fill up on water and charge your devices, if you have the chance. It’s going to be difficult,” Vilkul said on the Telegram messaging app.
Water utility pumping stations switched to generators and water remained in the system, but there could be pressure problems.
The full scale of the attack was not immediately known. There was no comment from Russia about the strike.
Russia has repeatedly struck Ukraine’s power plants, substations and transmission lines with missiles and drones, seeking to knock out electricity and heating and hinder industry during the nearly four-year war.
Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid.
Kryvyi Rih, a steel-and-mining hub in the Dnipropetrovsk region and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, has been hit repeatedly, with strikes killing civilians and damaging homes and industry.
The city sits close enough to southern front lines to be within strike range, while its factories, logistics links and workforce make it economically important and a key rear-area center supporting Ukraine’s war effort.
