WASHINGTON - Even as the strength of Taliban and Al Qaeda has been diminished to a large extent, the situation in Afghanistan continues to be of concern, the outgoing Obama administration said on Tuesday.
“The situation in Afghanistan continues to be one of concern and I think the president would acknowledge that this is an area where we've made important progress that has made the American people safer,” the White House press secretary said.
Josh Earnest told reporters at his last daily news conference there was still important work to be done in that region of the world -- a responsibility the incoming president would assume.
Afghanistan, he acknowledged, was the kind of issue that historians spent a lot of time looking at when evaluating Obama's presidency.
“What President Obama promised to do when taking office was to refocus our attention on the threat from Al Qaeda that emanates in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region,” he recalled.
Obama put in place a strategy, working closely with his national security team at the State Department and the intelligence community, and of course the Department of Defense, the spokesman added.
The US partly succeeded in decimating core Al-Qaida that previously menaced it from hideouts in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, he said, adding the accomplishment had made the American people safer.
But the threat in that region had not been eliminated and there continued to be a smaller number of US service members engaging in counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, he said.
They were also working closely with thousands of troops from NATO partners, Earnest noted. “I know there has been a question raised about how important a role NATO has played when it comes to counterterrorism.
“You have to look no further than Afghanistan to assess just how valuable a contribution that they have made to that effort,” Earnest concluded.(Pajhwok)