*WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump used 9/11 remembrance commemorationsWednesday to announce an unprecedented escalation of the US militaryassault on Afghanistan’s Taliban, just days after he wanted to hold peacetalks with the insurgents.*
Speaking at a Pentagon ceremony marking the 18th anniversary of theterrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, Trump said that over“the last four days” US forces have “hit our enemy harder than they haveever been hit before and that will continue”.
Trump said the assault was ordered after he canceled peace talks with theTaliban over the weekend in retaliation for a bomb attack that killed oneUS soldier last week.
The precise nature of the US offensive against the Taliban that Trumpdescribed was not immediately clear.
On Monday, Trump had already declared that “over the last four days, wehave been hitting our Enemy harder than at any time in the last ten years!”
But US troop levels in Afghanistan are only around 14,000, a fraction ofthe peak of about 100,000 in 2010.
In his Pentagon speech, Trump also issued a threat against militants everattacking on US soil again, saying the response would be unlike any everseen before.
“If for any reason, they come back to our country, we will go wherever theyare, and use power, the likes of which the United States has never usedbefore,” he said.
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“I’m not even talking about nuclear power. They will never have seenanything like what will happen to them,” he added.
The warlike comments were all the more startling because it was only onSaturday that the Republican former businessman announced on Twitter thathe’d been about to meet with Taliban leaders on Sunday at his Camp Davidpresidential retreat.
Before the tweet, no one outside Trump’s immediate circle was aware of thedevelopment.
It came after months of painstaking, mostly behind-the-scenes negotiationson cutting back the US troop presence and extricating the United Statesfrom a long, fruitless war.
It was also stunning for the choice of the prestigious Camp David settingon a date so close to the September 11, 2001 anniversary.
Trump’s abrupt reversal of that plan and decision to punish the Taliban forlast week’s bomb attack was followed by the sacking of his controversialnational security advisor John Bolton on Tuesday. -APP/AFP
