US not winning Afghan war: US Army chief

[LRE]

US not winning Afghan war: US Army chief

* Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen says Pentagon revised strategy to include militant safe havens in Pakistan

WASHINGTON: United States military conceded it was not winning the battle against an increasingly deadly insurgency in Afghanistan and said on Wednesday it would revise its strategy for the region to include militant safe havens in Pakistan.

“I’m not convinced we are winning in Afghanistan. I am convinced we can,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Navy Admiral Mike Mullen said in a sobering testimony before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee nearly seven years after US-led forces toppled Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime.

Mullen said he was already “looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region” that would cover both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

“We can hunt down and kill extremists as they cross over the border from Pakistan, but until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate the safe havens from where they operate, the enemy will only keep coming,” he said.

He also warned that time was running out of the West’s ability to provide Afghanistan with vital non-military assistance for Afghanistan, including roads, schools, alternative crops for farmers and the rule of law. “We cannot kill our way to victory,” said Mullen. reuters

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