US to keep more troops in Afghanistan than planned

 The United States has abandoned plans to cut the number of US troops in Afghanistan to 5,500 by year's end, the Associated Press reported on Saturday, but a senior US official told Reuters no decision
has been made.

Many of the 9,800 US troops currently in Afghanistan would probably remain well into next year, although no final decision on numbers had been made yet, AP reported, citing unnamed U.S. officials. President Barack Obama probably will use a Washington visit by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani this month to announce the new withdrawal timeline, AP said.

Ghani has asked the United States to slow the pace of withdrawal. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on a visit to Kabul last month that the United States was considering slowing the planned drawdown of US troops.

Under the current plan, the United States would halve the number of troops in Afghanistan to just over 5,000 this year, gradually winding down to a "normal" U.S. Embassy presence by the end of 2016. That strategy has drawn sharp criticism from Republicans in Congress, who say hard-won gains made against the Taliban could be lost in much the same way that sectarian violence returned to Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal.

The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Army General John Campbell, said last month he had presented his commanders with several options on troops withdrawals for this year. The senior US official told Reuters the "discussions remain ongoing" about Campbell's recommendations but "no decisions have yet been made."