WASHINGTON: US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins has said President Barack Obama is still mulling a range of options for the size of the US military presence in Afghanistan after 2014.
Dobbins told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that as the Afghans build up their country‚ they won’t stand alone.
The two primary goals for the US in Afghanistan are to train, assist, and advise Afghan forces so that they can maintain their own security, and making sure that American forces can continue “to go after remnants of al-Qaida or other affiliates that might threaten our homeland,” Dobbins said.
“That is a very limited mission, and it is not one that would require the same kind of footprint, obviously, that we’ve had over the last 10 years in Afghanistan,” he said.
But with respect to actual troop numbers, Obama “is still reviewing a range of options from his national security team and has not made a decision about the size of a US military presence after 2014,” Dobbins said.
