Afghan Commandos from the 4th and 9th Special Operations Kandaks conducted a combined helicopter and ground assault raid in Bala Boluk district, Farah province, Afghanistan, May 24-25, 2018. (Sgt. Joe Conroy/Army)
Shawn Snow, Military Times: Are Afghan forces beating the Taliban in 2019? The Pentagon won’t say.
Another bloody year of fighting in Afghanistan is almost in the books as peace negotiations between the U.S. and Taliban seek an end to America’s longest war.
But Pentagon officials won’t provide any metrics to highlight whether Afghan forces made any battlefield progress in their fight against the Taliban and other militants across the country in 2019.
“I’m not going to get into specifics with respect to metrics," Rear Adm. William D. Byrne Jr., vice director of Joint Staff, told reporters during a Pentagon press briefing Thursday.
Byrne told reporters that Army Gen. Austin Miller, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was “satisfied” with the current force posture to carry out counterterror and advising missions.
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WNU Editor: This war is stuck at a stalemate. As to the Afghan military itself. I have been following this war since the beginning, and the Afghan military have definitely improved in the past 18 years. But is it enough to make a difference on the battlefield to shift the momentum in favour of the Afghan government? That answer is still a no.
