US to send forces to Afghan

US president Obama is expected to send an additional 4,000 troops to train Afghan forces as part of review of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The new strategy includes recommendations to counter a persistent Taliban and al-Qaeda campaign that spans the two countries’ border.

US officials have said success in Afghanistan is impossible without tackling Taliban enclaves in Pakistan, whose government is beset by political turmoil.Nabi Misdaq, an Afghanistan analyst in Washington, told Al Jazeera he hoped Obama would not go for a military solution to the conflict, citing a series of US air raids that have caused a number of civilian casualties.

Obama has said previously that the US is losing the war in Afghanistan and the new policy is central top his administration’s efforts to turn the conflict around, giving more responsibility to the Afghan government itself. Obama is to define the objectives of the plan as eliminating the threat from al-Qaeda to undermine or topple US-backed elected governments or to launch attacks on the US, its interests and allies.

The strategy is to take a regional approach focusing on counter-terrorism, economic development and offer economic aid to help stabilise Pakistan, where the Taliban has a number of strongholds, officials told the Reuters news agency.The problems were highlighted by Afghanistan’s intelligence chief, who accused Pakistan’s spy agency ISI of helping Taliban fighters carry out attacks in his country.