Trump calls out Pakistan on Taliban safe havens

Donald Trump commits to an increase in ground troops and an open-ended military involvement in Afghanistan.

‘Our support is not a blank cheque’: Afghan National Army soldiers at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Kabul.

US President Donald Trump has unveiled a new Afghan strategy that commits to an increase in ground troops and an open-ended military involvement there, a ­dramatic reversal of his pledge to end the US presence in the war-torn nation.

Mr Trump acknowledged the policy U-turn early in a speech which emphasised that America’s new approach to the protracted conflict would be dictated by “conditions on the ground, not ­arbitrary timetables”.

“A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al-Qa’ida, would instantly fill,” he said, citing the consequences of the US withdrawal from Iraq.

In a speech light on detail, the President put Pakistan on notice over its continued support for ­terrorists, emphasised Islamic State as the main terror target of a boosted US presence and left open a possible settlement with the Taliban.

NATO allies and global partners would be expected to support the new strategy with additional troops and funding increases “in line with our own”, he added.

But Mr Trump also warned his country’s commitment was “not unlimited, our support is not a blank cheque” and that support for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his administration was conditional on that government achieving “real reforms, real progress and real results”.

Immediately afterwards, ­Secretary of State Rex Tillerson released a statement saying: “We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions. We look to the inter­national community to join us in supporting an Afghan peace process.”

Like his predecessor Barack Obama, Mr Trump has drawn a line under previous US efforts to export democracy.

“We will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands,” he said at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia. “Instead, we will work with allies and partners to protect our shared interests.”

The US has 8400 troops in ­Afghanistan in a vastly scaled-down train-and-assist mission from a peak of almost 100,000 US troops under the Obama administration.

Most estimates suggest Mr Trump will add a further 4000 soldiers in coming months. “We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. America’s ­enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out,” he said.

Mr Obama’s decision to announce a troop surge at the same time as an ultimate withdrawal date for US troops from Afghanistan was seen as handing the Taliban a timeframe, a strategy and a motivation to continue fighting. Afghan analyst Ahmad Shuja said the new US strategy would be welcomed in Afghanistan, where security forces are sustaining ­record casualties, though it was curious that Mr Trump’s regional strategy made no mention of Russia, Qatar, Iran or the United Arab Emirates — all of which had a stake in Afghanistan.

“I imagine President Ghani will be happy because he got more troops, more time, more resources, for unspecified results and unspecified reforms,” Mr Shuja told The Australian.

Dr Ghani aims to double to 24,000 the number of Afghan special forces, the state’s most ­effective fighting force, and putting more US trainers on the ground will help him achieve that.

While a Taliban spokesman dismissed the new US strategy yesterday as vague and “nothing new”, Mr Shuja predicted it would “take the wind out of the Taliban’s sails” by addressing the adage that “America has all the watches but the Taliban have all the time”.

Mr Trump’s insistence that Pakistan end its support and safe haven for the Afghan Taliban and allied Haqqani network will also be applauded in India and ­Afghanistan, even if he failed to outline the consequences of non-compliance. Pakistan denies it does so and ahead of Mr Trump’s speech yesterday its military spokesman, Major General Asif Ghafoor, said security forces had cleared all Afghan insurgents and allied militants out of Pakistan.

But New Delhi will almost certainly blanch at Mr Trump’s suggestion that its lucrative trade relationship with the US obligated it to help out in Afghanistan.