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BRUSSELS Two years after winding down its military operation in Afghanistan, NATO has agreed to send more troops to the war-ravaged country to help train and work alongside the Afghan security forces.

The move comes in response to a request from NATO commanders to provide around 3,000 troops.

Speaking ahead of NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels Thursday, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that "15 nations have already pledged additional contributions" and that he expected more pledges later in the day.

Britain has said that it would contribute just under 100 troops in a non-combat role.

"We're in it for the long haul. It's a democracy. It's asked for our help and it's important that Europe responds," British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon told reporters. "Transnational terror groups operate in Afghanistan, are a threat to us in Western Europe."

European allies and Canada are waiting to hear what U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will offer, or indeed seek from them.

Stoltenberg said the increase does not mean the alliance will once again combat the Taliban and extremist groups there.

However he conceded "there are many problems, and many challenges and many difficulties, and still uncertainty and violence in Afghanistan.

"What we do is not to conduct combat operations but to help the Afghans fight, and to help the Afghans take full responsibility for the security in their own country," he said.

NATO particularly wants to train more Afghan special operations forces, which are key to countering Taliban insurgents and extremist groups undermining the central government in Kabul. The alliance also wants to help build up the country's fledgling air force and train pilots. Another aim is to improve officer leadership standards.

Soldiers with the U.S. Army 3rd Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, in Kandahar Province, 2013. Andrew Burton / Getty Images

U.S. and allied forces have been fighting for nearly 16 years against Taliban Islamists who harbored al Qaeda militants behind the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001.

For Mattis, the NATO trip will bring him one step closer to an expected mid-July finish line for his long-awaited Afghan war plan, which he hopes will break a stalemate in America's longest war and eventually bring it to a successful conclusion.

Speaking to reporters during his flight to Europe, he said he would brief allies about the U.S. assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and his efforts to fill in "any gaps left in the strategy".

He declined to say how many troops he expected from NATO allies.

Mattis said he aimed to return to Washington to "finish out some things" in consultation with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph Dunford, who just returned from Afghanistan, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

"And then we'll present to the president a strategy that's been informed by our allies, to include Afghanistan of course, and given a framework that is regional in nature and focuses on: how we end this war," he said.

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War in Afghanistan: Will Mattis Commit More Troops ...

An Afghan Army soldier mans a check point in Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan on June 10. Ghulamullah Habibi / EPA

The review, run by National Security Adviser and former military leader in Afghanistan General HR McMaster, is expected to be presented to the president in early July and released to the public mid-month.

If approved, this latest change would be another expansion of the U.S. counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan, one that would help drive the decision to deploy more American troops to the country. Defense officials expect Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to approve a plan to deploy upwards of 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, some assigned to the NATO training mission and others assigned to a counter-terror mission. There are currently 8,400 U.S. troops there.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joe Dunford hinted at the need to fight the Taliban and Haqqani network during an event at the National Press Club on June 19.

Pakistan is a key to Afghanistan and its security, he said, adding, and ensuring that Haqqani does not have sanctuary in South Asia, and making sure the Taliban don't have sanctuary in South Asia, making sure there's a secure border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is critical, making sure there's effective political and military relationships between Pakistan and Afghanistan, that's one of the interdependent variables that's going to allow us to be successful.

The U.S. handed over security responsibility to the Afghans in 2014, officially ending the American combat mission there and discontinuing their ability to target Taliban and Haqqani fighters simply because of their affiliation to the groups. The US military could then only go after remnants of al Qaeda.

Over the next year the Taliban made steady gains throughout the southern, eastern, and central parts of the country and Afghan National Security Forces struggled to maintain security. The U.S. military remained in the country in an advise and assist mission, working with the Afghan military and police and providing them some air support.

In June 2016, President Obama approved the American military playing a larger role in supporting the Afghans from the air, authorizing airstrikes against the Taliban to support an Afghan military offensive. But those strikes were still limited to circumstances when they would have what the military called strategic effects such as stopping Afghan troops from being overrun or help them in a critical phase of a mission.

About six months later President Obama authorized the military to also hunt and target ISIS-Khorasan Province fighters, an Islamic State affiliate that had grown in eastern Afghanistan.

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Pentagon Weighs More Aggressive Role in Afghanistan - NBCNews.com

KABUL Leaders of Afghanistans three major ethnic minority political parties, all of whom hold senior positions in the government, announced from Turkey Saturday that they have formed a coalition to save Afghanistan from chaos, issued a list of demands for reforms by President Ashraf Ghani, and vowed to hold mass protests unless they are met.

The stunning development followed weeks of gathering political turmoil and public unrest after a devastating terrorist bombing in the capital on May31. It brought together a group of powerful ex-militia leaders, once rivals in a civil war, in an extraordinary alliance that could present Ghani and his shaky government with its most serious challenge since taking office in 2014.

The groups statement was issued from Ankara, where Abdurrashid Dostom, an ethnic Uzbek strongman who is still technically first vice president in the Ghani government, moved recently on grounds of ill health despite being under investigation in Kabul for sexual assault against an elderly political rival. Dostoms aides circulated the statement on social media.

The other leaders Mohammed Atta Noor, an ethnic Tajik and provincial governor; Mohammed Mohaqeq, an ethnic Hazara leader and deputy to the governments chief executive; and Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, a member of Noors Jamaat-e-Islami party have been visiting Dostom in the past week for a family wedding in the lavish home where he has often lived in periods of exile.

[The West is indifferent to Afghanistan and Iraqs world of terror]

The group, calling itself the Coalition for the Salvation of Afghanistan, said their aim was to prevent the collapse of the government, avoid chaos and restore public trust. They demanded that Ghani devolve power to cabinet ministries and provinces, stop overreaching his authority for personal motives, schedule long-promised elections, and obey the constitution and the law. It also called for Dostoms full authority to be restored and a government attack against him to be investigated.

Ghanis office responded coolly and calmly to the provocative salvo. Presidential spokesman Shahhussain Murtazawi told news outlets that the government welcomes any move that contributes to national interests, but he noted that the individuals leading the coalition are involved in the government and thus also accountable for its shortcomings. If the group has any alternative plans for overcoming the current situation, he said, they should share them.

There was no comment from the office of Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive officer who has been estranged from Ghanifor many months. Abdullah, from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, has disappointed party figures such as Noor for making too many concessions to Ghani in an effort to keep the struggling government afloat.

A variety of political figures and observers reacted skeptically to the news, suggesting that the ethnic minority leaders, all of whom have had differences with Ghani while in office, may be less interested in government reforms than in using a period of public anger and unhappiness to press for political advantage. They also noted that Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, has been criticized for concentrating power in the hands of his ethnic and tribal allies and marginalizing other ethnic groups.

A spokesman for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Pashtun former fugitive warlord who returned to Kabul recently in a peace deal with Ghani, said the new coalition seemed suspicious and might be more interested in personal demands than public ones. Why have they been silent for so long? asked the spokesman, Kareem Amin. You cant be inside the system and criticize it too.

Hekmatyar, in a separate statement Saturday, called on all Afghans to unite and support the Ghani government at a time of crisis. The country is suffering from high unemployment and a protracted insurgent conflict. The May31 bombing was a major blow to the nations confidence in its rulers.

It was unclear whether the ethnic opposition leaders, who have called for city-wide demonstrations starting Monday, would be able to draw much support from the protesters that filled the streets of Kabul for most of June after the huge bombing and several subsequent violent incidents.

[In Kabul, anger against Afghan government touches off deadly street clashes]

The groupserected tent colonies on major streets where speakers demanded change night after night. The tents were dismantled by security forces on June20, but protest groups vowed to return to the streets in force after Ramadan and Eid, the Muslim fasting month and holiday that ended this week.

But although many of the protesters demands were similar to those listed by the ethnic leaders, the composition and tone of their impromptu movement, called Uprising for Change, was completely different. A mix of students, academics, liberal activists and womens groups, as well as families of bomb victims, they called mainly for justice, security and more responsive governance.

The most strident voice in the new coalition has been that of Noor, a wealthy northern governor who until recently was negotiating with Ghani to obtain a greater share of power. During the fraud-plagued 2014 elections, which both Abdullah and Ghani claimed to have won, Noor threatened to create violent unrest if Ghani was declared the winner.

Last week, delivering a message to a large crowd at the end of Ramadan in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Noor warned that if Ghani did not meet the groups demands, we will come by the thousands and thousands to Kabul. Sources in the security community said the group planned to gather its forces in several suburban locations and march to the presidential palace.

Walid Sharif contributed to this report.

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Political storm brews in Afghanistan as officials from ethnic minorities break with president, call for reforms and ... - Washington Post

Six teenage girls from Afghanistan have been denied visas to travel to the US for an international robotics competition, but they will be permitted to send their ball-sorting contraption to competewithout them.

The aspiring inventors wept when they heard they couldn't escort their machine to Washington DC for the First Global Challenge, an annual contest for high school students from across the world.

Team Afghanistan work on their project (FIRST Global Media)

They had twice trekked around 500 miles from Herat, a western city in Afghanistan, to the American embassy in Kabul to apply for the one-week travel visas.

But their efforts proved to be in vain as US officials rejected their applications following a series of interviews.

Afghanistan's first female tech boss Roya Mahboob, who founded software firm Citadel, organised the all-girl team and said they were "crying all day" after they were turned down.

She told Forbes: It's a very important message for our people. Robotics is very, very new in Afghanistan.

The girls are still working on a ball-sorting robot which they will send to compete against 163 other machines at the Firstchallenge in July, and they will appear at the event via video link from Herat.

Graduate students from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania helped the students to programme their robot, but the team had to wait for months while customs officials inspected the raw materials of their contraption amid fears that Isis could use robots to wage terror across the region.

Team Afghanistan's robot now has permission to travel.

One of the team members, Fatemah, 14, told Forbes: "We want to show the world we can do it, we just need a chance."

First Global President Joe Sestak said the girls were extraordinarily brave young women and told Forbes he was disappointed they weren't allowed to travel to the US.

Only the teams from Afghanistan and Gambia have been denied travel visas, while students from Iran, Iraq, and Sudan are able to attend.

US State Department records state that just 32 business travel visas were granted for Afghans in April, far fewer than the 138 issued to Iraqis or the 1,492 applications accepted in Pakistan during the same month.

Jonathan Blanks, a media commentator and researcher at the Cato Institute, tweeted: "I feel safer now that we've denied a once in a lifetime opportunity to a group of girls whose country we've been bombing since their birth."

Verizon's former vice president of communications Anthony Citrano called the decision "infuriating".

The State Department has not commented on the visa denials because they are confidential records.

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Afghanistan's all-girl robotics team banned from entering US - but their robot will be allowed in - The Independent

Six teenage girls from Afghanistan planned to come to the US to compete in the First Global Challenge robotics competition this month, but those plans were canceled after they were denied visas to enter the country. Forbes reports that the girls traveled 500 miles to Kabul for their visa interviews, and that their robots supplies were held in customs for months.

This kit, which the competition organizers issued to every participating team, included different components, like brackets, extrusions, fastening hardware, hardware adaptors, bearings, wheels of different sizes, gears, pulleys, motors, servos, and sprockets. The State Department feared ISIS might try to use these parts on the battlefield, which is why they delayed sending them to the girls.

Still, the team built a ball-sorting robot on a shortened timeline; their kit only arrived three weeks ago. More than 100 other teams have entered the competition, including participants from Iraq, Iran, and Sudan. The girls robot will still compete, but the team will only be able to watch over a video call from their homes in Herat, Afghanistan.

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US denies visas to Afghanistan's all-girl robotics team - The Verge - The Verge