The US and Europe need to send 5,000 more troops to Afghanistan to break a stalemate between Afghan forces and Islamic terrorists, the top US general in Kabul says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot afford to walk away from Afghanistan,\u201d Gen. John Nicholson told The Sunday Times of London. \u201cThis is where the war against terrorism started on 9\/11. Failure here would embolden terrorists globally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicholson will ask for additional forces at a NATO meeting in May with the backing of US Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, the report said.<\/p>\n
Nicholson\u2019s request would run counter to Trump administration wishes to end nation-building in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Right now, 8,400 US troops and 5,000 troops from other NATO countries are deployed to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Nicholson said the Afghan government controlled only \u201cabout 62 percent of the population and about 57 percent of the territory.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US and Europe need to send 5,000 more troops to Afghanistan to break a stalemate between Afghan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2"],"yoast_head":"\n