Afghans now on their own in fight against Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan — The aide rushed into the meeting holding a cellphone in his outstretched arm. "You need to take this, sir," he said, handing the phone to Gen. John Campbell, the top coalition commander here.

Afghanistan's national security adviser, Mohmmad Hanif Atmar, was on the line, describing a desperate battle. Homes were on fire and thousands of Taliban militants were threatening to overrun Kunar Province east of here, commanders on the ground reported. Afghan forces needed immediate American airstrikes to avoid a catastrophe.

Campbell and other American officials had heard desperate, often exaggerated, pleas before. So before dispatching American F-16 fighter jets or other aircraft, the general ordered his forces to conduct aerial surveillance. They saw nothing that would suggest a major Taliban offensive or a desperate battle.

Request denied.

The Afghans are hearing "no" a lot these days as they take over the 13-year-old war against the Taliban militants this week. "They're going to have to stand on their own," says Maj. Gen. John Murray, the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

A U.S.-led coalition formally ended its combat role in Afghanistan on Sunday. A U.S. force of around 10,000 troops — a tenth its size in 2011 — will remain to guard American facilities, advise the Afghans and engage in combat only in dire circumstances, say, if this capital city is in danger of being overrun by Taliban rebels.

It's a delicate balance," Campbell tells USA TODAY at coalition headquarters. "What I don't want to do is let them fail."

The cost of failure is high. Just look at Iraq. Three years after U.S. combat forces withdrew, Iraq's military collapsed in the face of an onslaught by radical Islamic State fighters.

U.S. officials say there is little chance Afghanistan will turn into another Iraq. They say Afghanistan's new government and its military enjoy wide popular support. The country hasn't experienced the sectarian conflicts that have torn Iraq apart and undermined the effectiveness of its security forces. And American combat troops won't withdraw entirely as they did from Iraq in 2011, aside from a small force at the embassy in Baghdad.

"We're past the point where the Taliban can overthrow this government," Campbell says.

Perhaps, but the Afghan government is still plenty worried about the insurgents' ability to ramp up random violence, particularly in the capital, once the Americans leave.

"Security is the number one duty of the government," says Shukria Barakzai, a member of parliament who survived a suicide bomb attack in November. "It's impossible for them (the Taliban) to come back and control Afghanistan. But in the meantime we need security."

Barakzai, who serves on parliament's defense committee, says the government also needs an American presence "for the confidence, for the support."

Violence in Kabul has escalated in recent months, as the Taliban — ousted from power by the U.S. invasion in 2001 — hope suicide bombings and other attacks will undermine Afghans' trust in their government to provide security as foreign troops leave.

Elsewhere in the country, however, violence has decreased and Afghan security forces have managed to hang on to most of the territorial gains they have made with coalition help over the past several years. Nationwide, insurgent attacks declined 34% in the last several months compared with the same period last year, according to U.S. military statistics.

Even so, the Taliban and other insurgents remain a formidable enemy: More than 4,600 Afghan government forces have been killed in 2014 in fierce fighting.

President Obama had promised to wind down the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But in the face of the continued threat posed by the Taliban, the White House agreed to provide U.S. air support only if an attack poses a "strategic" threat to the Afghan government.

The White House gave U.S. military commanders the flexibility to determine the circumstances that pose such a threat. "I didn't want to have Washington say here are the only 15 ways that you can do this," Campbell says. "They've left that up to me to make that determination."

Campbell says most requests for air support from Afghan forces would need his personal approval. A "strategic threat" is generally an assault that could threaten the viability of the government, such as a local government center getting overrun.

"If it's just a squad out there that's going to get overrun, I'm not going to do that," Campbell says, referring to a unit of a few dozen soldiers.

U.S. commanders say Afghan's military is increasingly capable for providing its own airstrikes and medevac flights. For example, the average time to fly a wounded Afghan from the battlefield has dropped from three days two years ago to four hours.

Americans are urging their Afghan counterparts to make use of their growing capabilities. "Anytime they request something, the first question is: 'What about your capabilities?'" says Maj. Gen. John McMullen, the top coalition air commander in Afghanistan.

The main U.S. military task in the new year will be to develop systems that will make Afghanistan's security force sustainable over time. It is comprised of about 352,000 soldiers and police, and will cost more than $5 billion a year to support. Most of that money will come from U.S. taxpayers.

Because of the high price tag, U.S. commanders will be putting strict financial controls on the money that flows to the Afghan force. "The last 13 years we built an army to be able to fight," says Maj. Gen. Todd Semonite, commander of the Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan. "Now I've got to build an army that we can afford."That means demanding more fiscal accountability, he says.

In both military strategy and financial responsibility, the U.S. military believes it has a more cooperative partner in the new government headed by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

Former president Hamid Karzai, who stepped down this fall after more than a decade in power, had become an increasingly outspoken U.S. critic, often assailing U.S. airstrikes that he claimed killed innocent civilians. Karzai refused to sign an agreement that would allow U.S. forces to remain after this year, but Ghani was quick to endorse the deal.

"What a change from the day that President Ghani took over," says Campbell, who meets frequently with the new president. "The coalition has a window of opportunity here with the new government."

Ghani's government has signaled some interest in slowing the current U.S. timetable for withdrawal of most remaining forces by the end of 2016.

Many Afghans share that view, says Army Col. John Graham. "Some actually believe we will never leave," he says.

One of them is police Col. Dilaga Usmani, who supervises a war room filled with dozens of video monitors deep inside Kabul's police department.

"The public wants the American forces to stay," Usmani says. "They promised they would stay by our side."