Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin talked up the long-promised “over-the-horizon” missions to keep attacking Afghanistan without being in Afghanistan.
Austin said this would be part of a relentless focus on terrorism, talking of action coming against ISIS-K and al-Qaeda. US troops left Afghanistan after the Taliban routed the US-backed government in all major cities.
Even before the US left, officials talked about this sort of operation as a way to stay active in Afghanistan. It’s not at all clear what that would look like, or how sustainable it might be.
It’s probably going to mean airstrikes with little targeting support. The Taliban has insisted that they don’t need help in fighting terror, and they’ve been active in anti-ISIS-K measures.
“We must work together to combat terrorism—including in Afghanistan from al-Qaeda, and from the malice and sectarian hatred of ISIS.” he said.
“And we’ll keep up our relentless focus on counterterrorism, even as we shift to an over-the-horizon concept in Afghanistan,” the defense secretary said at the conference.
Lloyd’s on a roll. I wonder if he would have a problem with other countries deciding to use the “over the horizon” concept to combat our internal problems. Especially if they were the ones who created those problems in the first place. And if they did so even though our government told them we need no help.
wars, clearly the USA wants another war since Afg. is ended. The USA is failing and flailing and any one who studies world history knows what is coming next, I wanna barf! 🙁
Does this mean the Taliban with also engage in “over the horizon” missions in response?
They definitely should!
Should what?
This means … don’t touch the opium fields?