The unannounced high-level visit comes as
Afghanistan's beleaguered security forces struggle to beat back the
Taliban, which has been on the offensive since the withdrawal of US-led
NATO combat troops at the end of 2014.
Mattis, along with NATO chief Jens
Stoltenberg, will meet President Ashraf Ghani and other top officials to
discuss the US-led NATO "train and assist" mission designed to
strengthen Afghanistan's military so it can defend the country on its
own.
"Discussions will focus on the
NATO-Afghanistan partnership, including the ongoing NATO-led Resolute
Support Mission in support of the Afghan National Defence and Security
Forces," a statement on Resolute Support's Facebook page said.
US generals have for months been calling
the situation in Afghanistan a stalemate, despite years of support for
Afghan partners, continued help from a NATO coalition and an overall
cost in fighting and reconstruction to the United States of more than $1
trillion.
The war turns 16 in October and America
is pressing NATO partners to increase their own troop levels in the
country to help Afghan forces get the upper hand in the grinding battle
against the Taliban and the Islamic State group.
The resurgent Taliban have promised to
turn Afghanistan into a "graveyard" for foreign forces and have been
mounting deadly attacks as they maintain their grip on large swathes of
the country.
As of February only about 60 percent of
Afghanistan's 407 districts were reported to be under government
control, according to the US watchdog agency SIGAR.
Slapdash training
Under Trump's plan, the US is sending
more than 3,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 11,000
already on the ground, to train and advise the country's security
forces.
NATO allies have around 5,000 troops deployed around the country.
Critics have questioned what the extra
US soldiers can accomplish that previous forces -- who numbered some
100,000 at the height of the fighting -- have not.
Earlier this year Ghani ordered a
near-doubling of the country's Special Operations Command -– the elite
fighting force spearheading Afghanistan's war against insurgents -- from
17,000 as part of a four-year plan that also aims to strengthen
Afghanistan's air force.
While Afghan authorities have welcomed
Trump's open-ended commitment to increase US troop numbers, they know it
will take time to improve the fighting abilities of their own forces.
Afghanistan's soldiers have been severely demoralised and weakened by huge casualties, desertions and corruption.
In an acknowledgement of their
impotence, the government is considering a plan to train and arm 20,000
civilians to defend territories where Islamic militants have been driven
out.
Earlier this week SIGAR criticised US
efforts to train Afghanistan's security forces, saying they were being
hampered by slapdash instruction, shoddy oversight and failures in
governance.
John Sopko, the Special Inspector
General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, whose agency provides
independent oversight of reconstruction programmes, said the US was
woefully unprepared to take on the challenge of creating security forces
of the size and scope needed in Afghanistan.
Mattis flew to Kabul from New Delhi
where he met his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman, who made it
clear that India would not deploy troops to Afghanistan as part of
Trump's strategy.
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