KABUL, Afghanistan -- Top U.S. military officials said Monday that the United States must confront Russia for providing weapons to the Taliban for use against American-backed forces in Afghanistan.
At a news conference with Defense Secretary James Mattis, Gen. John Nicholson, the American commander in Afghanistan, wouldn't provide specifics about Russia's role in Afghanistan. But he said he would "not refute" that Moscow's involvement includes giving weapons to the Taliban.
Mattis met with President Ashraf Ghani and other senior government officials just hours after the nation's defense minister and army chief resigned over a massacre of more than 140 Afghan troops at a military base Friday.
"We continue to get reports of this assistance," Nicholson said. "We support anyone who wants to help us advance the reconciliation process, but anyone who arms belligerents who perpetuate attacks like the one we saw ... in Mazar-e-Sharif is not the best way forward to a peaceful reconciliation."
A senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence on the matter, said the Russians have increased their supply of equipment and small arms to the Taliban over the past 18 months. The official said the Russians have been sending weapons, including medium and heavy machine guns, to the Taliban under the guise that the materiel would be used to fight the Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan.
Instead, the official said, the weapons were showing up in some of Afghanistan's southern provinces including Helmand and Kandahar -- areas with little Islamic State presence.
Russia denies that it provides any such support to the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan until the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Russia says contacts are limited to safeguarding security and getting the hard-line religious fundamentalists to reconcile with the government -- which Washington has failed for years to advance. Russia also has promoted easing global sanctions on Taliban leaders who prove cooperative.
Asked about Russia's activity in Afghanistan, where it fought a bloody war in the 1980s and withdrew in defeat, Mattis alluded to the increasing U.S. concerns.
"We'll engage with Russia diplomatically," Mattis said. "We'll do so where we can, but we're going to have to confront Russia where what they're doing is contrary to international law or denying the sovereignty of other countries."
"Any weapons being funneled here from a foreign country would be a violation of international law unless they were coming to the government of Afghanistan," Mattis said, adding that it would have to be dealt with as such.
The attack -- the biggest ever by the Taliban on a military base in Afghanistan -- involved multiple gunmen and suicide bombers in army uniforms who penetrated the compound of the 209th Corps of the Afghan National Army near the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Balkh province on Friday, killing and wounding scores.
The six-hour assault began as Afghan soldiers were leaving their weekly prayers or ambling to the base's dining facility. The Taliban fighters were eventually killed by a response force led by Afghan commandos. Nicholson praised the elite but overworked unit's response for bringing the "atrocity to an end."
A U.S. official said it appears likely the attack was either carried out by or planned by a Pakistan-based Taliban faction known as the Haqqani network, which is a U.S. government-designated terrorist organization. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence matters, added the assault likely took four to six months to plan and that it was also likely the attackers had help in advance from Afghan troops on the base.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault, which according to some estimates killed over 130 people.
A senior American military official in Kabul on Monday gave the latest Afghan estimate as standing at 144 Afghan soldiers killed and said it was likely to rise further.
Two resign over attack
Ghani accepted the resignations of the army chief of staff and the country's defense minister, according to a statement from the president's office. It was not immediately clear who would replace Defense Minister Abdullah Habibi and army Chief of Staff Qadam Shah Shahim.
The two said in a joint news conference that their decision to step aside was because of widespread anger at the attack.
The resignations came as no surprise, U.S. officials said, because they came on the heels of another devastating attack in March. In that assault, militants entered the Afghan army's main hospital in Kabul and killed more than 50 people in violence that lasted nearly seven hours and was claimed by the Islamic State.
Ghani, U.S. officials said, had to show that there was some degree of accountability in his government. But Ghani, in fact, stepped in to protect the defense minister when Parliament was trying to oust him after the hospital attack.
Nicholson said that while the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the hospital attack in March and the Taliban claimed responsibility for the base attack last week, military officials were watching for "convergence" between the two groups in Afghanistan. The style of attacks, Nicholson said at a news conference with Mattis, was similar, and he added that it was "quite possible that Haqqani" was responsible for the base attack last week.
On Monday, the president's office confirmed that Ghani had also replaced the commanders of four army corps, including the 209th. But officials and analysts said the appointments amounted more to an emergency reshuffle than any sign of effective change.
The aging top layer of commanders and generals of Afghan forces is widely seen as corrupt. And there are rising concerns that the overreporting of troop and police strength, allowing commanders to line their pockets with pay for nonexistent "ghost" soldiers, has partly obscured a deep problem with high attrition and desertion rates.
At the urging of the U.S. military leadership, Ghani set up a board to monitor senior security appointments and institutionalize promotions based on merit and away from political patronage. But a couple months in, the board seems in disarray.
U.S. troop strength reviewed
Mattis arrived unannounced in Kabul to assess what has become America's longest war as President Donald Trump's administration weighs sending in more U.S. troops to help the Afghans fight the insurgency.
The attack in Balkh raises serious questions about the Afghan military's capability to stand on its own in the battle against the insurgency after the withdrawal of foreign combat forces at the end of 2014. The American and other foreign troops remaining in Afghanistan are now mostly acting in an advisory and training role, with some combat assistance.
Currently, there are 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan split between performing two roles. One contingent helps advise the Afghan security forces while the other carries out unilateral and partnered counterterrorism operations against groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida. In addition to the U.S. troops, there are roughly 5,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan split between various areas of responsibility.
Nicholson, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the chief of U.S. Central Command, have both agreed that roughly 3,000 additional troops are needed to help prop up the Afghan security forces and break what top U.S. officials have called a "stalemate" in the country. At the height of the war there were more than 100,000 troops in the country.
Nicholson's request for more U.S. troops came after the Afghan government again missed much of its winter goal to urgently overhaul the security ranks in order to put up a stronger fight against the Taliban, who overran large parts of the country last year and now threaten several cities.
Mattis said Monday that he is still deciding whether he'll ask Trump to send more troops.
Kabul was the final stop on Mattis' six-nation, weeklong tour. He is the first member of Trump's Cabinet to visit Afghanistan. As part of the administration's review of Afghan policy, Trump's national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, visited Kabul last week to consult with Nicholson and Afghan officials.
Information for this article was contributed by Rahim Faiez and Robert Burns of The Associated Press; by Thomas Gibbons-Neff of The Washington Post; and by Mujib Mashal, Helene Cooper, Zahra Nader and Jawad Sukhanyar of The New York Times.
A Section on 04/25/2017