WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama's expansion of the war in Afghanistan has eroded the power of Al-Qaeda terrorists who attacked America in 2001 and the resurgent Taleban militants who gave them cover, according to his own government's review. The findings ensure that Obama will stay the course, with US forces to remain at war through 2014. US troops will begin to leave Afghanistan in July, according to the report, the same timeline that Obama promised one year ago and has consistently upheld in recent weeks. But the scope and pace of that withdrawal remain unclear, and both are expected to be modest, given the enormity of the security and governance challenges in Afghanistan. All the findings will be tested in the months and years to come. They form the basis not just of Obama's war strategy but also his credibility with the American people on how this long, costly war is going – and when it will end. The US and its NATO allies hope to turn control of the Afghanistan conflict to that nation's own forces by the end of 2014, a timeline endorsed in the new review. Even then, Obama envisions an enduring US role in Afghanistan. The White House Wednesday released a five-page summary of the newly finished, classified evaluation of the war strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan that Obama unveiled to much fanfare in December 2009. The most promising conclusions are that the senior leadership of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan is at its weakest since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – and that the Taleban, a constant source of violence and instability in Afghanistan, has seen much of its power halted and reversed over the last 12 months. Obama, inheriting a war he considered adrift but vital to American security, ordered a heightened US presence and a renewed commitment to supporting Afghanistan's development. There are now roughly 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, as well as 40,000 from NATO allies.
