The General Running The War In Afghanistan Says He Needs A Few Thousand More Troops

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General John W ''Mick'' Nicholson

Shah Marai / AFP / Getty Images

The top US commander in Afghanistan told Capitol Hill on Thursday that he need “a few thousand’ more troops in America’s longest war — less than two months after the US finished withdrawing 1,400 of them.

Gen. John Nicholson said he needed the additional boots on the ground to train and advise Afghan troops.

“I have adequate resourcing in my counterterrorism mission. In my train, advise, and assist mission, we have a shortfall of a few thousand,” Nicholson, commander of Operation Resolute Support, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He also called the war, which has dragged on since October 2001, a “stalemate.”

Nicholson suggested that the additional troops could be supplied by NATO partners. But the NATO alliance came under attack from President Donald Trump, who said on the campaign trail that NATO partners needed to take on more financial responsibility in exchange for the US's commitment, making it unclear whether any nation partner would want to invest more troops in Afghanistan.

The US invoked Article V of NATO's founding document — which calls upon members to come to each others aid if one is attacked — at the start of the war in Afghanistan, the first time it was triggered since the alliance formed.

There are currently 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan, according to the US military. There are hundreds of additional US troops not counted in the Pentagon’s official tally. Trump has rarely mentioned Afghanistan itself, despite the US forces there, and nd there has been no indication from the White House about its war strategy in Afghanistan.

Trump also did not directly mention either ongoing war in Iraq or Afghanistan during his first visit Monday to US Central Command, which is responsible for the wars in the Middle East.

In July, President Obama announced that the US military would drawdown its forces from 9,800 to 8,400 troops by the end of 2016. Obama had hoped to only leave 5,500 troops but decided the situation in the 15-year war was “precarious.”

Obama said at the time that he reached the 8,400 figure after consulting with top military leaders, including Nicholson.

Nicholson did not say precisely how many troops he wanted or elaborate on why he needed them now. He did say that he planned to speak to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis about his request.

The Taliban has increasingly threatened to take control of Afghanistan’s biggest cities and conducted more brazen attacks. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Afghan Supreme Court building in Kabul, killing at least 19 and injuring 40 more. While the attack bore the hallmarks of the Taliban, no group has claimed credit for it yet and the government has not named a culprit. The following day, six Afghans working for the International Committee of the Red Cross were kidnapped and killed in northern Afghanistan, in an area with a strong ISIS presence.

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