NATO to decide on more troops in Afghanistan

NATO will take another month to respond to Washington’s demands for alliance allies to send more troops to Afghanistan.
During a meeting of the NATO Military Committee in Tirana in Albania on Saturday, defense chiefs from 29 member nations recognized the need to send in more troops, said the committee’s chairman General Petr Pavel.
However, no decision will be taken until they have consulted with their respective governments, Pavel told reporters after General Joe Dunford, the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, presented their requests.
The meeting comes months after Pentagon chief Jim Mattis told NATO allies they must “finish” the job in Afghanistan.
“The bottom line is that NATO has made a commitment to Afghanistan for freedom from fear and terror, and freedom from terror demands that you can’t let this be undone,” he said in June.
Last month US President Donald Trump cleared the way for the deployment of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.
He did not specify how many soldiers would be sent but officials have said the additional troops could number about 4,000, on top of 11,000 already in the country.