U.S. Likely to Delay Planned Closure of Two Afghanistan Bases
Terrorism is like an amoeba, if you poke it in one place it flows out to another. So as ISIS is pushed in Syria, the terror groups could flow to other unstable regions ( or “wildernesses” as Al Zawahiri called them in AQ’s official doctrine a few years back,) these include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
The U.S. military bases in Kandahar and Jalalabad are likely to remain open beyond the end of 2015, a senior U.S. official said, as Washington considers slowing its military pull-out from Afghanistan to help the new government fight the Taliban.
The anticipated policy reversal reflects the U.S. embrace of Afghanistan’s new and more cooperative president, Ashraf Ghani, and a desire to avoid the kind of collapse of local security forces that occurred in Iraq after the U.S. pull-out there.
It coincides with new efforts backed by Pakistan and China for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Washington has welcomed greater engagement by China, which has helped create a diplomatic opening for reconciliation.
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