United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson paid a shock go to to Afghanistan on Monday to debate Washington’s new technique with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
Tillerson reiterated the US dedication to working with the Kabul authorities and regional companions “to attain peace in Afghanistan and deny secure havens to terrorists who threaten that purpose”, mentioned a US embassy assertion posted on Twitter.
The assembly came about at Bagram Airfield, the US’s largest base in Afghanistan, because the resurgent Taliban step up assaults on Afghan police and troops in response to the US technique introduced in August.
“Clearly we now have to proceed to battle in opposition to the Taliban, in opposition to others, to ensure that them to know they are going to by no means win a navy victory,” Tillerson instructed reporters after the assembly that was additionally attended by Afghan Chief Govt Abdullah Abdullah.
It was Tillerson’s first journey to Afghanistan as secretary of state and comes a number of weeks after US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis additionally paid an unannounced go to.
The closed-door talks lined Ghani’s reform programme, his anti-corruption technique and preparations for parliamentary elections resulting from happen subsequent yr.
US President Donald Trump “has declared that we’re right here to remain till we will safe a strategy of reconciliation and peace”, Tillerson mentioned, including: “It is not a vast dedication.”
Tillerson’s unannounced go to follows one of many bloodiest weeks in Afghanistan in current reminiscence, with greater than 200 individuals killed in a number of assaults on safety installations and mosques throughout the nation.
A spokesman for the militants instructed AFP final week the assaults had been “a transparent message… the enemy who thought that they had scared us with the brand new Trump technique have now been given a lesson”.
The Taliban have been rampant for the reason that withdrawal of NATO fight forces on the finish of 2014.
Trump has cleared the best way for the deployment of 1000’s extra US troops in an open-ended dedication and there was a surge within the US airstrikes, however the insurgency has solely intensified.
Militants fired a number of rockets into Kabul on Monday morning however there have been no casualties. Throughout Mattis’s go to final month Taliban militants fired a number of rockets in direction of the town’s worldwide airport in an assault that killed one particular person and wounded 11 others.
Tillerson is because of fly to Pakistan on Tuesday.