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A relentless air-and-ground campaign against the Islamic State (IS) affiliate in Afghanistan does not appear to have radically diminished that militant groups ability to inflict deadly attacks or prevented it from expanding its geographical reach in the war-torn country, analysts asked to assess progress against such radicals' fighting capacity in Afghanistan told RFE/RL.

U.S. and Afghan forces have waged a relentless campaign to destroy Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K) since that IS offshoot emerged in 2015, with Washington and Kabul claiming their campaign has killed hundreds of militants and commanders, including its leaders.

But speculation at the group's demise has proved premature as it has expanded to at least five provinces, from Nangarhar, Kunar, and Nuristan in the east to Jawzjan in the north and Ghor in the west. ISIS-K has also continued to carry out a series of high-profile attacks seemingly targeting members of the mainly Shi'ite Hazara community.

U.S. military officials have maintained the group is on the retreat, although reports this week claimed an exasperated U.S. President Donald Trump recently told his top officials that we aren't winning...we are losing the war in Afghanistan to militant groups like the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS-K.

Analysts say ISIS-K is neither a monolithic group nor a direct extension of the extremist group in Iraq and Syria -- representing more of an alliance of splinter groups from the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban with elements of regional militant groups such as Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e Jhangvi.

These kindred groups have simply rebranded themselves to attract funding and replicate the success of IS militants in the Middle East, say analysts.

Remarkably Resilient

The group is proving remarkably resilient in Afghanistan because it hails from the region and has operated there for a long time, says Ahmad K. Majidyar, a South Asia and Middle East expert. It is not an alien group that has relocated from the Middle East to South Asia.

Majidyar says it is also no coincidence that the ISIS-K emerged in the wake of the Pakistani Armys military offensive starting in 2014 that drove myriad militant groups from Pakistans lawless tribal areas into eastern Afghanistan, where ISIS-K has set up its headquarters.

NATO's spokesman in Afghanistan, U.S. Navy Captain William K. Salvin, told RFE/RL that ISIS-K was on the run in Afghanistan." He added that the number of ISIS-K militants is down to around 1,000 from a high of 3,000, although he acknowledged the group had expanded its activities to western and northern Afghanistan.

In April, the U.S. military in Afghanistan dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), dubbed "the mother of all bombs," in an effort to destroy IS hideouts in a complex of tunnels and bunkers in eastern Nangarhar Province. U.S. officials said the bomb killed over 90 militants, though fighting in the area has continued.

Tapping Into Sectarianism

Instead of being a death blow to the group, ISIS-K has continued to carry out a series of attacks targeting the Hazara minority.

In the latest attack, ISIS-K carried out a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in the western city of Herat, killing at least 32 people. In its deadliest attack to date, the militants killed over 80 people in twin suicide bombings targeting a protest staged by members of the Hazara minority in July 2016. At the time it was the deadliest attack to hit the Afghan capital since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, says ISIS-K has managed to tap into growing sectarianism that has been metastasizing in Afghanistan.

Former Taliban leader Mullah Akhar Mansur was trying to avoid playing the sectarian card and blatantly ethnic discrimination and got rid of local commanders for that -- and they joined ISIS-K, she says.

Fighters Relocating From Middle East

The resilience of ISIS-K fighters in Afghanistan has fueled concerns of a possible spillover into Afghanistan from the fighting in Syria and Iraq.

There is little evidence yet of fighters relocating from Iraq and Syria, although Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Dawlat Waziri said this week that the government had observed an increase in numbers of foreign fighters and weapons entering the country.

Michael Kugelman, South Asia associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, says there is good reason to believe that some IS fighters are coming to Afghanistan from the Middle East as their strongholds and safe havens are destroyed there.

IS militants have lost large swaths of the so-called caliphate they declared in 2014. Iraqi government forces last month recaptured the northern city of Mosul, IS's last remaining stronghold in Iraq. Meanwhile, U.S.-backed Syrian Kurd and Arab fighters are fighting to recapture the city of Raqqa, the group's stronghold in Syria.

They may see Afghanistan as an attractive destination because of its large lawless spaces and rampant instability, says Kugelman. Those conditions work to any terror group's advantage.

There are also fears about Afghans who have fought alongside IS militants in Syria and Iraq returning to their homeland.

They are destined to return in the near future -- if they have not already, says analyst Majidyar. Those fighters are battle-hardened and poisoned with sectarian beliefs, which could pose serious challenge to Afghanistans sectarian harmony and fragile stability.

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Islamic State Proving Resilient In Afghanistan In Face Of Targeted Campaign - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

An online fundraiser for the pregnant wife of a soldier killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday has raised more than $32,000 in its first day,Army Times reported.

The money will go to support the wife of 25-year-old Spc. Christopher Michael Harris of Jackson Springs, North Carolina, according to the description of aGoFundMe account set up by a friend.

Britt has recently discovered that she and Chris were expecting their first child, wrote Jenny Ann Stone, who created the fundraising page. During this time, money should be the absolute least important thing on her mind.

The page has a goal of $50,000.

Funds pledged to the account will supplement survivors benefits paid out by the Defense Department a tax-free $100,000 gratuity and Servicemembers Group Life Insurance, which automatically enrolls all service members for a $400,000 death benefit, Army Times reported.

Harris was one of two soldiers killed during an attack in Afghanistans Kandahar Province,Fox News reported. The other man who died was 23-year-old Sgt. Jonathon Michael Hunter, of Columbus, Indiana. Both men died when an explosive device detonated near their convoy, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Both soldiers were part of the 82nd Airborne Division, 2nd Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment.

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Fundraiser for wife of soldier killed in Afghanistan tops $32K in first day - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Contractor training Afghan troops

Eric Prince, the former CEO of Blackwater, argues for expanded use of contractors in Afghanistan. Some of his proposals deserve attention.

The idea apparently resonated with the White House (though not with Secretary of Defense Mattis) and has continued to get attention. Prince is widely regarded as the spawn of Satan because of the many controversies surrounding Blackwaters conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan, so commentators have lined up to criticize his proposals. Many of his proposals are, indeed, highly debatable, such as creating an army of contractors and establishing a viceroy.

But there are three policy points that Prince gets right, and these deserve more discussion:

Mark Cancian

First, as Prince points out, the US needs, and has always lacked, people who stay on the ground for years and really know the turf. The Vietnam War had John Paul Vann, who spent seven years in theater and knew everyone. The Afghan War had Carter Malkasian. In two years working with Afghan leaders, he had enough time to understand their problems and win their trust.(Learning to speak the language also helped.) But these individuals were unique. The military has nothing comparable.Service membersrotate quickly because long deployments stress the force and reduce retention, and few speak the language outside of a few foreign area officers. They stay in theater seven months to a year. Thus it is said that the US does not have 16 years of experience in Afghanistan; it has one year of experience 16 times.

Further, the military personnel system discourages building such expertise because such assignments would hurt careers. Military personnel, particularly senior enlisted and officers, need to move through a set series of assignments to be competitive. Captains need to command companies, majors need to be operations officers, lieutenant colonels need to command battalions. Getting sidetracked by a long assignment outside established units makes individuals uncompetitive, irrespective of whatever guidance senior leaders might give promotion boards. FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency does not even raise the possibility of such long tours.The military and counterinsurgency community understand this problem. Many commentators, from Tom Ricks to RAND have noted the need for such a cadre, but nothing has ever happened. (Creating roughly half-a-dozen regional regiments is a favorite cause of Breaking Defenses editor.)

Afghan non-commissioned officer training.

Contractors provide a different and much more flexible personnel system. They can hire people with the right qualifications, often prior military, and put them in place for extended periods because both sides know that that is the deal. They can leverage existing skills and do so without many of the constraints of the military system, like age or the need to retain for a 20-year career.Getting the right contractor into the right billet is not automatic, it takes effort, but the mechanism is there.

Second, creating viable Afghan security forces is the only way well be able to pull our forces out without causing a collapse behind us. Long-term embeds down to the lowest levels, as Price suggests, might be the way to accomplish that. Our current approach of using generalists however brave and well intentioned who turn over rapidly is not working. Most Afghan units, outside of special forces, although fighting and dying, are not very effective.The U.S. Army is building regionally aligned security force assistance brigades to provide such capabilities, but that effort is just beginning.

A British officer fights mutinying Indian soldiers in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857/

Prince points to the 19th century army of the East India Company as a model.That army failed, revolting in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. (In any case, creating a whole contractor army is highly debatable.)But the success of the successor British India Army of the Raj is undeniable.It maintained peace on the subcontinent and fought effectively in both World Wars.One reason the British were so successful with Indian forces was that many military personnel went native, integrated fully, learned the language, and took up local customs, including Indian dress. British officers and NCOs spent entire careers with Indian troops. Deep acculturation also avoids the mirror imaging that Price, and many others, criticize; other militaries dont need to be structured and equipped like the U.S. military.

Third, if the US really wants to play a long game in Afghanistan, it will need to reduce the wars visibility. Its hard to do that with large numbers of Americans wearing uniforms because servicemembers get so much attention, and DOD keeps pointing to them.

Continuous stories about deployments and stress on military personnel remind the public about the war. Thus, the political questions constantly arise: how are we doing and when will the war be over? On the other hand, one of the tenets of counterinsurgency is that it takes a long time and requires strategic patience. Some go on for decades. As FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, notes: Counterinsurgency operations may demand considerable expenditures of time and resources. The population must have confidence in the staying power of both the affected government and any counterinsurgency forces supporting it.

In supporting the decades-long Colombian counterinsurgency, the US deployed no military units but instead used contractors extensively.As a result, the war stayed off the publics radar, and the US was able to sustain a long-term effort that culminated in the 2016 peace agreement and, in effect, surrender of the insurgents. Yes, there is an element of cynicism in substituting contractors for military personnel and capitalizing on the publics lack of interest in contractors, but the world is what it is and decision-makers must deal with it.Reduced visibility is something every White House looks for, and this White House (like the two previous administrations) is anxious to avoid an endless war.

The US already has a lot of contractors in Afghanistan 26,000 according to the most recent report of whom 9,500 are Americans. Two-thirds perform base functions like logistics and communications support, 13 percent are in security, only 3 percent in training. Using contractors is not an either-or proposition, but a question of changing the manpower mix.

Texas National Guard soldiers in Afghanistan.

If the US were to rely more on contractors, it should apply the painful lessons learned of the last two decades. The early years of the Iraq war were marred by extensive abuses. Although contractors were generally effective, government contracting organizations were overwhelmed and unable to provide the oversight necessary. As a result, many safeguards are now in place, from a beefed-up contingency contracting capability, to regulations holding contractors accountable to military authorities, to doctrine on how to employ contractors.

Prince proposes that the Afghan government employ contractors, which, among other effects, gets around prohibitions on contractors performing inherently governmental functions that exist in US law. However, the Afghan government is almost certainly unable to efficiently and effectively exercise control over this much money and capability. The U.S. would need to be in charge.

So we should take these points seriously, even if some of Princes other recommendations are debatable, and many people dont like his past. Yes, the military personnel system might be changed to accomplish some of these goals, but changes during 16 years of war have been modest, so there is no reason to believe that major shifts are near. Maybe a different manpower balance could do better.

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Contractors in Afghanistan: What Erik Prince Gets Right - Breaking Defense

"General John Nicholson has served our country with honor and distinction for 35 years. He has earned the trust and admiration of those he has served with. And he has earned my full confidence," McCain said in a statement.

"Our commanders-in-chief, not our commanders in the field, are responsible for this failure," he added, referring to Trump and former President Barack Obama. "I urge the President to resolve the differences within his administration as soon as possible and decide on a policy and strategy that can achieve our national security interests in Afghanistan and the region."

In an appearance on Fox News Thursday, Trump's deputy assistant, Sebastian Gorka, said the President is confident in Nicholson's military leadership in Afghanistan.

"Absolutely, absolutely, yes," he said. "It is not a question of confidence, it is a question of inheriting bad ideas, false assumptions and reassessing what's good for America."

The Pentagon also tried to downplay reports that Nicholson could be on the way out.

Defense Secretary James Mattis "has confidence in General Nicholson's leadership," according to a statement from Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White.

Nicholson took command of US forces in Afghanistan in March 2016 and CNN has not independently verified the NBC News report that Trump is considering removing him from his post.

But while Trump retains full confidence in his military commanders in Afghanistan, he remains skeptical about a continued US presence in the country, Gorka said on Thursday, describing a meeting last week where Trump questioned plans for the future of US troops in Afghanistan.

"Look, nothing is carved in stone," said Gorka, a national security adviser to the President.

"What the President did here in the West Wing a week ago in the situation room is he asked them very pertinent questions and he basically doesn't want this administration to make the same mistakes that both the Bush administration and the Obama administration made."

"He wants everyone to look at the core assumptions upon which our plans are based, and say are these assumptions sound," Gorka said. "The key question, Bill (Hemmer), is what is the national security relevance of Afghanistan to this country? When that question is answered adequately then we'll know which options we should apply and the President will make the decision."

The Trump administration is currently considering its commitment to and strategy for Afghanistan and the wider region.

Mattis told Congress that the strategy would be decided upon by mid-July but the plan has been delayed for months amid sharp disagreements between national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who is arguing for an increase of several thousand troops to help turn the tide in the fight against the Taliban, and the President's chief strategist Steve Bannon, who is opposed to getting the US more deeply involved in the conflict.

"Eight years of a 'don't lose' strategy has cost us lives and treasure in Afghanistan. Our troops deserve better," McCain said in a statement.

US and coalition casualties in Afghanistan have become rarer in recent years, falling dramatically since the Afghan government assumed responsibility for combat operations in 2014. But there has been an uptick in recent months as US forces have become more directly involved in the fight against the local ISIS affiliate.

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McCain backs top commander, slams Trump on Afghanistan - CNN

Seated with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with service members at the White House on July 18.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

According to an incredibly detailed NBC News report of a highly classified National Security Council meeting, President Donald Trump unloaded on his top military leaders over Afghanistan in mid-July, questioning the wars management and suggesting that its commander, Gen. John Nicholson, be sacked. Over the long and reportedly heated meeting, Trump broke norm after norm of civil-military relations, in roughly what might be expected from a man who displayed so much antipathy toward the military during his presidential campaign.

Trump is right to question the fundamentals of a war that has already cost so much and achieved so little.

Throughout the two-hour meeting, Trump appeared biased against the advice of his generals and Cabinet secretaries, going so far as to compare the military advice he was getting to bad business advice given to the management of the 21 Club, one of his favorite New York restaurants. He told the group that he had gotten better advice from a relatively junior group of troops he had lunch with at the White House days before the meeting. Trump likened these troops to the 21 Clubs waiters, who really knew what was going on at the restaurant as opposed to the clueless, high-priced consultants brought in by management.

And yet, for all that he was a jerk, Trump wasnt wrong to question the military establishments position on Americas longest war. The brass has gotten a lot wrong over the past 16 years of fighting in Afghanistanfrom rotating units constantly to placing bases in dumb places to deciding on questionable strategies. Adding slightly more resources, or marginally changing the strategy, will not produce better outcomes much less victory (whatever that means). Even if hes going about it poorly, Trump is right to question the fundamentals of a war that has already cost so much and achieved so little. And this is precisely the point to ask such questions: at the start of an administration, prior to the adoption of a strategy or commitment of more troops.

The meeting at the heart of the NBC News report appears to have been a gathering of the statutory National Security Council, composed of the executive branchs top Cabinet-level officials and chaired by the president himself. These full-up NSC meetings are rarely held and usually used to decide on a major strategy, or discuss responses to a crisis. Last months meeting capped weeks of lower-level conversations held without the president, not to mention a great deal of effort by military planners, to figure out the road ahead. National Security Adviser H.R. McMasters goal was clear: to get the presidents approval to send another 4,000 troops to Afghanistan and make an indefinite commitment to that country too.

Unfortunately for McMaster and the other brass in the room, the meeting didnt play out that way. Over two hours, Trump reacted poorly to being boxed in by the generals (who he very clearly and wrongly sees as his generals), a sentiment shared (if not overtly voiced) by President Obama. Trumps frustration with the lack of progress boiled over in attacks upon Defense Secretary James Mattis and others. Trump reportedly felt there should be more to show for the six months of fighting since he took office (as if the 15 previous years hadnt happened). Trump also fixated on the contributions of NATO allies to the fight and the potential extraction of precious metals from Afghanistan.

Mattis reportedly returned to the Pentagon so upset that he took a long walk to think about the meeting. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford offered to broker a meeting between Trump and Afghanistan commander Gen. John Nicholsonwho the president has yet to meet because hes not yet visited Afghanistan (or Iraq).

To be sure, Trump showed a startling lack of decorum and respect for his top national security officials. In dismissing their advice and privileging the views of junior troops over the generals, Trump is undermining the chain of command. Hes also depriving himself of the expertise and experience that all those generals earned while working their way up from being junior troops too. And, in mockingly comparing management of the Afghan war to that of a Manhattan restaurant, Trump denigrated the seriousness of the war itself, and the gravity of the decisions he must make that will have life and death consequences for Americans and Afghans alike.

But that doesnt mean Trump should treat the advice hes given with skepticism, no matter the qualifications of his source. Trump is also right to try to objectively evaluate the situation today, notwithstanding our enormous sunk costs, to determine the best strategy.

In deciding on a strategy, Trump should begin by deciding on our aims in Afghanistan. Despite (or maybe because of) 16 years of combat, these goals remain murky. It is unclear whether U.S. forces are currently focused on killing al-Qaida and ISIS elements, shoring up the Afghan government, or some combination of the two. In either case, it remains unclear what result would be good enough to satisfy U.S. interests.

Realism must shape this choice of goals. The situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, according to both American and international officials. U.S. sources estimate that Afghanistans government controls or influences roughly 60 percent of the countrys districts. Taliban forces continue to outmatch Afghan security forces, and U.S. combat advisers can only do much to support these Afghan units. In southern Afghanistan, where U.S. and British forces fought fiercely just a few years ago to beat back the Taliban, those gains have been nearly erased by successful political and military maneuvering by the Taliban, which now effectively controls Helmand and other nearby areas. At this point, given all that has transpired, the only realistic goal may be to pursue a narrow counterterrorism objective in Afghanistan, leaving broader questions about the countrys governance to its own leaders and forces.

These questions have a political dimension, to the extent they will require the president to raise and spend political capital to support the war. Although the president has reportedly delegated authority on troop levels to the Pentagon (only to have McMaster curtail this delegation), hes right to insist on some discussion of these at the NSC level. Ultimately, responsibility for the war rests with the president.

Join Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz as they discuss and debate the weeks biggest political news.

Good strategy often involves trade-offs based on realism about objectives and the scarcity of resources. In Afghanistan, it is unrealistic to pursue a strategy that involves remaking the country in our image, or indefinitely supporting the government there. Former Vice President Joseph Biden and others were right that our interests are more narrow, and that a strategy focused on killing al-Qaida and ISIS elements is both more realistic and more appropriate. This necessarily abandons much of the current strategy and approach, as well as much of what has been done since 2001 by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. These sunk costs matter enormously and emotionally to the brassbut Trump is right to be skeptical.

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"And yet, for all that he was a jerk, Trump wasnt wrong to question the military establishments position on Americas longest war." Three words: Civilian military control. More...

For their part, the brass havent always had the right answers to these questions, either at a strategic level or tactical level, in Afghanistan. Setting aside the political decisions made by Presidents Bush and Obama, and their civilian secretaries of defense, on strategic questions like whether to invade Iraq or whether to pull resources from Afghanistan to fight the other war, the generals have made many bad decisions at the tactical level in Afghanistan (and Iraq too). Choosing to deploy the Marines in Helmand over other more strategically important locations, placing combat outposts in vulnerable places where they could be overrun, running a piecemeal and inefficient strategy to train and equip Afghan forces, waiting years to implement effective counterinsurgency techniques, and rotating units and leaders too frequently through Afghanistan to be effectivethese failures belong to military leaders more than political ones. This includes Mattis, who was one of the first U.S. commanders in Afghanistan in 2001, and later oversaw fighting there as head of U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013. The military leaders in the Situation Room with Trump have the most expertise and experience on Afghanistan of anyonebut that does not make them infallible.

As the White House has cycled through personnel and dithered over strategy, the Afghan war has drifted, to the point where Mattis and most senior military leaders now publicly say the U.S. is not winning there. Trump must confront this reality and decide on a path forward. Wire-brushing the brass over the situation, or having lunch with troops at the White House, may help Trump feel better about what hes doing, but it wont affect the situation on the ground where U.S. troops are currently fighting and dying. Trump is right to ask hard questions of our Afghanistan strategy and our military leadership implementing itbut he must also realize there are no easy or quick answers where Afghanistan is concerned.

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Trump's 21 Club Salute - Slate Magazine