Obama commits 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan [View All]

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Source: Guardian

Obama commits 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan

• US president boosts numbers by nearly 50% to stabilise security
• Afghanistan 'has not received strategic attention it requires'

* Helen Pidd and agencies
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 February 2009 14.31 GMT

Barack Obama has ordered 17,000 extra US troops be sent to Afghanistan, keeping a campaign pledge to bolster security in the country, which he said had not received the "strategic attention" it required.

The deployment, which will boost the 36,000 US troops already there by 50%, is a sign of the president's determination to rethink America's approach to the war.

The move will please military officials in Afghanistan, who have pleaded for more forces to battle an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency. Militant attacks have escalated in the last three years and insurgents now control wide sections of countryside.

Obama's decision to deploy the troops was one of his first major acts in a war that began more than seven years ago and is now his responsibility.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/18/obama-afghanistan-troops