NEW YORK \u2014 Abolishing militant hideouts in Pakistan is critical to establishing peace in neighboring Afghanistan, the Afghan leader said Thursday before meeting President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neither Trump nor Afghan President Ashraf Ghani mentioned Pakistan when they appeared publicly together after their discussion. But Ghani said Pakistan\u2019s role is an important part of the Trump plan announced last month to end America\u2019s longest war and eliminate a rising extremist threat in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReduction of safe havens is absolutely necessary, both for counterterrorism and for stability in Afghanistan,\u201d Ghani told National Public Radio in an interview broadcast Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration in August infuriated Pakistan by accusing it of providing haven to extremists. The U.S. also has threatened to withhold military aid from Pakistan. The country repeatedly has said it is acting against Taliban insurgents and members of the Haqqani militant group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hope that this time, Pakistanis get the message loud and clear that business as usual cannot continue. It\u2019s not in their interest. It\u2019s not in anyone\u2019s interest,\u201d Ghani said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After meeting Ghani, Trump praised efforts to try to drive members of more than 20 militant groups, including the Taliban, out of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really a hornet\u2019s nest from that standpoint,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe are hitting them very, very hard and very, very effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senior officials have said Trump\u2019s plan for Afghanistan involves sending up to 3,900 additional U.S. troops on top of the roughly 8,400 Americans now in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ghani stressed that Afghan forces are leading the fight and U.S. forces are advising and training. He said he isn\u2019t seeking \u201ca blank check\u201d of unlimited American help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ghani said the Trump administration\u2019s four-year objective is to bring 80 percent of the country back under the government\u2019s control. The Taliban currently hold sway in nearly half of the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Separately Thursday, an independent auditor of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan released a report saying that although the U.S. has spent more than $70 billion in the past 16 years to build up the Afghani security forces, they\u2019re still struggling. Problems include morale, drug use, illiteracy, corruption, poor leadership and the challenges caused by ongoing, annual rotation of U.S. advisers and trainers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo put it plainly, as our report does, the United States failed to understand the complexities and scale of the mission required to stand up and mentor security forces in a country suffering from 30 years of war, misrule, corruption and deep poverty,\u201d John Sopko, the congressionally appointed special inspector general, said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afghan forces are sustaining high casualties. Large swaths of the country are off-limits to foreigners. U.S. embassy personnel are mostly stuck behind the walls of the Kabul embassy. They can\u2019t train judicial and police staff or offer technical support to Afghan ministries, according to the report, which described civilian advisers \u201cnow forced to move with armed guards in convoys or even by helicopter\u201d to meet Afghan officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. government is still struggling to build a security force in a nation of 70 percent illiteracy and few with technological know-how. It has trained more than 100,000 Afghan police officers using U.S. Army aviators, infantry officers and civilian contractors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne U.S. officer watched TV shows like \u2018Cops\u2019 and \u2018NCIS\u2019 to learn what he should teach,\u201d Sopko said. \u201cIn eastern Afghanistan, we met a U.S. Army helicopter pilot assigned to teach policing. We found one U.S. police-training unit set up as a military unit and another set up like a police unit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between 2002 and 2015, he said, senior U.S. and NATO officials created a plan for developing the force with \u201clittle to no input\u201d from senior Afghan officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt one point, training sessions for Afghan police were using PowerPoint-based curricula from the U.S.-NATO Balkan operations,\u201d Sopko said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report also said development of the police has been treated as a secondary mission to the army despite its critical role in battling lawlessness and providing security. Today, the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, is among Afghanistan\u2019s most corrupt institutions \u2014 which Ghani publicly acknowledged this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riechmann reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire contributed.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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