NATO to unveil numbers regarding troop levels in Afghanistan tomorrow

AVA- It has been nearly five months since the U.S. commander of international forces in Afghanistan called for thousands more troops to break stalemate with the Taliban. Currently, there are 13,000 mainly on mission to train, advise and assist local forces after most of the international troops left the country in 2014 to mark end of combat mission.

“There is an ongoing force generation process in NATO where our different allies are announcing how many troops they are able to provide. Hopefully, I can tell you more about specific troops numbers tomorrow,” NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.

He noted that the Taliban killed hundreds of civilians in recent weeks and emphasized on need for NATO’s presence in Afghanistan.

He reiterated NATO’s commitment to continue to fund Afghan forces until at least 2020.

Commenting on the Afghan forces, Stoltenberg said that the forces have proven “extremely professional.”

He said that NATO is building Afghan Air Force and training pilots and helping Afghanistan to improve leadership of security forces.

Asked about reports of Russia’s contacts with the Taliban, Stoltenberg said that he couldn’t confirm what kind of contacts Moscow is maintaining with the group.