US Defense Secretary James Mattis has said that he has signed deployment orders to send more troops to Afghanistan, days after President Donald Trump announced a new strategy to prolong war in the strategically important country located within South Asia and Central Asia.
“Yes, I’ve signed orders, but it’s not complete. In other words, I’ve signed some of the [orders for] troops that will go and we are identifying the specific ones,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.
The Pentagon chief did not say how many troops would be dispatched as part of the deployment orders.
“By and large this is to enable the Afghan forces to fight more effectively. It’s more advisers, it’s more enablers. Fire support, for example, and there’s some other things,” Mattis said.
Mattis said the additional troops, which could reportedly approach 4,000, were not on the way to Kabul yet.
“I just signed the…