U.S. reviewing its war strategy in Afghanistan

The Bush administration is considering making changes to its war strategy in Afghanistan in light of rising levels of violence and an increasingly complex insurgent threat, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

Gates did not say the current U.S. approach in Afghanistan is failing or explicitly call for a change of direction. He alluded, instead, to the 2007 makeover of U.S. strategy in Iraq and suggested in an interview with a group of reporters that the administration is reconsidering fundamental aspects of its strategy.

"You have an overall approach, an overall strategy, but you adjust it continually based on the circumstances that you find," Gates said in an interview with reporters at a London hotel.

"We did that in Iraq. We made a change in strategy in Iraq and we are going to continue to look at the situation in Afghanistan."

Pressed for more details about the review of Afghan strategy, Gates would say only, "We're looking at it."

Gates made the comments in advance of a NATO defence ministers' meeting in London, at which he said he would be raising the issue of how to pay for a planned doubling in the size of the Afghan national army.

He said developing the Afghan army is the ultimate exit strategy for the United States and its allies in Afghanistan.

Gates told reporters the United States and its NATO partners face "a different kind of challenge" in Afghanistan than just two years ago, when it appeared that the insurgency in the eastern region, which borders Pakistan, was under control.

Attacks increasing

Attacks in that region, as well as in southern Afghanistan, have since risen sharply.

Part of the difference from 2006, Gates said, is the growing threat posed in the east and south by extremist groups other than the Taliban. He mentioned al-Qaeda and bands of foreign fighters, many of which find refuge in Pakistan and are able to slip across the largely unpoliced border to launch attacks.

A senior defence official travelling with Gates said later the administration was examining a range of strategic questions, including whether to reduce the combat role of NATO troops in Afghanistan in light of planned increases in U.S. combat troops. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it amounted to a broad review that included more than just military aspects of U.S. strategy.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week he had commissioned a study of Afghan strategy to incorporate the complexities presented by rising unrest and insurgent activity in Pakistan.

Mullen also publicly questioned whether the United States is winning in Afghanistan.

Gen. David McKiernan, the senior U.S. general in Afghanistan, told reporters Tuesday at his Kabul headquarters that he believed the current strategy was adequate but that he needed more U.S. ground forces and other resources to properly execute it.

He said he needs more than 10,000 extra American ground troops in 2009, in addition to the reinforcements already announced by the Pentagon.

President George W. Bush also announced last April at a NATO summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, that the United States would send even more troops to Afghanistan later in 2009, beyond his term in office, which ends in January.

Gates mentioned that Bush pledge on Thursday and said, "I expect his successor will meet that commitment."