The former acting director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said the Taliban group has made major geopolitical gains in Afghanistan last year.
Michael Morell has also predicted that Afghanistan will re-emerge as a pivotal foreign policy during the current year amid rampant insurgency by the Taliban group.
“I think one big challenge is going to be the reemergence of Afghanistan as an issue,” Morell told CBS’s ‘Face of the Nation’ program on Sunday.
He said “The Taliban have made major gains over the last year. I would expect major gains going forward. They control more territory than they have in a number of years.”
Morell further added that the debate on how many troops to keep in the region will take center stage in Washington.
“I think the debate on how many troops we keep in Afghanistan is going to reopen,” he said, adding that “General Campbell already last week said we need upwards of 10,000 troops, which is double the number the president is currently looking at.”
The remarks by Morell comes as the Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant during the recent months as efforts have been put in place for a peaceful settlement of the ongoing violence in the country.
Meanwhile, Pentagon released its report regarding the security situation in Afghanistan in mid December last year, stating that the overall security has deteriorated dramatically during the second half of 2015 as the country continues to face threats from both the Afghan insurgency and extremist networks, including the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and to a lesser extent al Qaeda.
“The overall security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated with an increase in effective insurgent attacks and higher ANDSF and Taliban casualties,” the report said.
It also added he border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to remain a sanctuary for terrorist organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Haqqani Network and Al Qaeda.http://www.khaama.com/former-cia-chief-says-taliban-gaining-ground-in-afghanistan-1919
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