Obama’s Afghan plan imminent

Washington, Nov. 24: The United States President, Mr Barack Obama, held a final strategy session with top aides on whether to send more US troops to Afghanistan and plans to announce his decision within days, the White House said.

The session in the Situation Room on Monday with officials including the Vice-President, Mr Joe Biden, secretary of state, Ms Hillary Clinton, and defence secretary, Mr Robert Gates, marked the ninth such meeting.

Mr Obama is nearing a decision on whether to add as many as 40,000 troops to an eight-year-old war that began after the September 11 attacks and has begun to try the patience of Americans.

“After completing a rigorous final meeting, Mr Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days,” the White House spokesman, Mr Robert Gibbs, said.

Mr Obama’s announcement is widely expected to come before a Nato meeting on December 7 in Europe in which alliance members could agree to send thousands of additional trainers.

There are about 1,10,000 foreign troops, including 68,000 US soldiers, in Afghanistan.

Mr Obama has been reviewing war strategy in Afghanistan for the past two months after Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander there, said in a report that 40,000 additional troops were needed as the minimum to quell the insurgency. Mr Obama faces conflicting pressures on the Afghanistan issue as Americans are divided about whether to send more troops.