An additional 4,000 American troops are headed for Afghanistan, a Trump administration official told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The forces will join nearly 10,000 U.S. troops embedded in a war-torn country where combat operations technically came to an end in 2014. The Pentagon is hoping the deployment will break a stalemate between American-backed Afghan forces and Taliban fighters.
Defense Secretary James Mattis could officially announce the surge as early as next week, the AP reported.
“We are not winning in Afghanistan right now. And we will correct this as soon as possible,” Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this week.
There have been almost 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan since 2001. Three U.S. soldiers were killed there last weekend in an attack claimed by the Taliban.
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