Trump to announce 'path forward' for US in Afghanistan on Monday

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump will outline the United States' "path forward" in Afghanistan in a speech Monday night, the White House announced Sunday.

Trump's address, scheduled for 8 p.m. CST Monday at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, comes as Trump and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have said a decision has been made on a new US strategy in Afghanistan.


"He wants to be the one to announce it to the American people," Mattis said on Sunday, later adding, "He now needs the weekend to collect his thoughts on how he's going to explain it to the American people."


Mattis said Sunday that the strategy covered more than Afghanistan and was a full "South Asia strategy."

Trump's team has been working on a new US strategy in Afghanistan for months now. Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee in June that he would be able to present a strategy for victory there in mid-July. But the deliberations continued past that deadline, and Mattis said last Monday that the administration was "very, very close" to a decision after presenting Trump with a wide range of options, including everything from a surge of troops there to a full withdrawal.

During the strategy review, outside voices tried to present their own visions for Afghanistan. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain presented one that would involve an increase in US troops and further airstrikes, while Erik Prince -- the founder of the security company Blackwater -- pressed the US to move its strategy largely over to the private sector.


In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the US led an invasion of the country to topple the Taliban from power and eliminate a "safe haven" for al Qaeda. The war eventually became the United States' longest in history, and in 2014 President Barack Obama declared an end to combat operations.


In April, the United States dropped the "Mother of All Bombs," one of the nation's largest non-nuclear weapons, in Afghanistan.

