Washington: Security has improved in the war-stricken Afghanistan but the militants’ safe havens in Islamabad and the Kabul government’s premises pose significant threats to a “durable, stable Afghanistan,” according to a Pentagon progress report released Friday.
Pentagon made it clear to Islamabad government that the US force would not go back from Afghanistan as they left in 1989.
More than a decade since the September 11 terror attacks and the start of the Afghan war, the US and its allies have reversed violent trends in much of the country and the transition to Afghan security taking the lead has begun in seven key areas, including major cities such as Kabul and Herat.
However, cross-border attacks have increased in recent months due to insurgents’ safe havens in Pakistan and the support they received from within its borders.
“The insurgency remains resilient and, enabled by Pakistani safe havens, continues to contest” Afghan security forces throughout the country, especially in the east, the report said.
The Pentagon sent the semi-annual report to Congress.
The Unites States has some 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and plans to bring most forces home by the end of 2014. President Barack Obama announced this past summer that 10,000 troops will be redeployed by the end of the year. The additional 33,000 that Obama sent as a surge force will be out by the end of September 2012, leaving about 68,000 troops.
“Transition remains on track with no demonstrated effort by the insurgency to target the process,” the report said.
The latest progress report strikes a more critical tone than previous Pentagon reports about Pakistan’s failure to crack down on insurgent safe havens along the Afghan border, arguing that these havens enable militants considered the greatest threat to American troops in the war torn country.
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