U.S.-Led Forces Formally Ending Afghanistan Combat Mission

KABUL—U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan are formally ending their combat mission on Sunday, leaving Afghan forces to battle a still-resilient Taliban insurgency largely on their own.

The change in mission, which will be marked by a ceremony in Kabul on Sunday, is largely symbolic. A new international military mission, dubbed Resolute Support, will begin, replacing the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force with a smaller force that will focus more narrowly on counterterrorism and on training Afghan soldiers and policemen.

ISAF was created after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Initially focused providing security in the capital, Kabul, it evolved into a coalition of some 50 nations focused on combating the Taliban insurgency.

The force was 130,000 troops strong at its peak, but it gradually shrank in recent years as Afghan policemen and soldiers began to take over responsibility for security in their country.

“There is a need for continued support, and that’s going to be given in Resolute Support,” said German Army Lt. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, the coalition’s deputy commander. “But we are not here in a fire-brigade role that intervenes and takes over the fight, as we’ve done in previous years.”

Some 13,500 foreign troops --the bulk of them American--will stay in Afghanistan as part of two security pacts the new Afghan government signed with the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in September. While NATO troops will focus exclusively on training and advising Afghan troops, U.S. forces will have a limited combat role as part of the new force’s counterterrorism component.

Under the new mission, the bar will be higher for U.S. forces to enter into operations against the Taliban or to intervene with airstrikes in support of the Afghan military. Privately, some Afghan officials are worried this will strain the ability of relatively primitively equipped Afghan forces to counter Taliban offensives in the coming months.

“To be honest, it’s not fine,” one Afghan official said. “If there is no air support, there won’t be too much difference between our forces and the Taliban.”  Read More at Wall Street Journal

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