President Obama Keeping More US Troops in Afghanistan Longer Than Planned

By John Parkinson
Jul 6, 2016, 11:09 AM ET

The United States is slowing its plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan because of a resurgent Taliban that's seeking to regain territory, President Obama said today before his trip to Poland to attend a NATO summit on Friday.

There are about 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a number that the administration had planned to decrease to 5,500 by year's end. That figure will now decrease to about 8,400 troops by the end of the year, Obama says.

“The narrow missions assigned to our forces will not change,” Obama said. “They remain focused on supporting Afghan forces in going after terrorists but maintaining our forces at this specific level based on our assessment of the security conditions and the strengths of Afghan forces will allow us to continue to provide tailored support to help Afghan forces continue to improve.”

Obama said the security situation in Afghanistan “remains precarious,” asserting that the Afghan security forces are “still not as strong as they need to be.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-keeping-us-troops-afghanistan-longer-planned/story?id=40373895

2:07 video at link.