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| Image: Flickr User - ResoluteSupportMedia |
By Franz-Stefan Gady
General John F. Campbell testified on the results of this year’s fighting season in front of the U.S. Congress.
This week, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, General John F. Campbell, testified [PDF] in front of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on the still ongoing fighting season in Afghanistan. He offered a somewhat bleaker assessment than during a previous congressional testimony in March of this year (See: “Quo Vadis Afghanistan: General Campbell Testifies on the Hill”).
While noting the Afghan army’s courage and resilience, Campbell said that the recent fighting in Kunduz has illustrated that the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) “do not possess the necessary combat power and numbers to protect every part of the country.”
Campbell is confident that the ANDSF will regain control of all of Kunduz city. However, he underlined that the overall performance of the ANDSF during this year’s fighting season was “uneven” and “inconsistent,” in particular noting their tendency to remain “tethered to isolated checkpoints and static defenses, which increases their vulnerability and reduces their ability to maneuver effectively.”
The 2015 fighting season has once more shown that the ANDSF still require “broad support” from the United States and its allies. “They have repeatedly shown that without key enablers and competent, operational-level leaders, they cannot handle the fight alone in this stage of their development,” according to Campbell.
Read the full story at The Diplomat