Reuters/Washington

US and allied defence officials, increasingly wary of White House plans to scale back the US presence in Afghanistan, are reviewing new drawdown options that include keeping thousands of American troops in the country beyond the end of 2016, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
Citing US and allied officials, the Journal said US Army General John Campbell, the top international commander in Afghanistan, had sent five different recommendations to the Pentagon and to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) officials.
The options include keeping the current US presence at or near 10,000; reducing it slightly to 8,000; cutting the force roughly in half; and continuing with current plans to draw down to a force of several hundred troops by the end of 2016, the Journal reported.
Some officials worry that too large a cut could cause the Afghan government to come under increased pressure from the Taliban and other militants, the paper said.
There has been no formal Pentagon recommendation on changes in the troop presence in Afghanistan, the Journalreported.
This past March, President Barack Obama announced that the US would keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through the end of this year in response to a request by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The original plan called for a reduction to 5,500 troops by the end of 2015.
“Afghanistan remains a very dangerous place,” Obama said at the time in explaining his decision. The president had previously pledged to leave only a small force in Afghanistan that could be based at the US Embassy in Kabul by the time he left office.
Nato and the US currently have a combined force of about 13,000 in Afghanistan, mostly engaged in training and support following the end of the combat mission last year.
The lessons of the Iraq withdrawal in 2011 and the rise of the Islamic State militant group loom over the Afghanistan debate, the Journal said. Some officials believe that Iraq’s military would have been able to better fight off Islamic State’s advance last year had the United States maintained a force of at least several thousand advisers in the country. One senior military official told the Journal that current drawdown plans raise the risk of Afghanistan’s collapse to an “unacceptable level.”
Any US decision on troop levels would be closely watched by Nato, with some allied officials saying that a larger American presence would enable them to keep their current troop levels and keep several military bases operating around the country. Unlike the US, Nato has never publicly committed to any timeline for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“There are 30-plus countries ready to contribute; the question is how big the US will be,” one Nato official told the Journal. “Enablers give others confidence that if they get in a real pinch, the US will be able to help them out. Will the US provide the backbone around which Nato brings 30 more countries?”