KABUL — Four days into his tenure as defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday morning and opened up the possibility of slowing the withdrawal of the last American troops in the country to help keep the Taliban at bay.
The 10,000 troops are now conducting counterterrorism operations and advising the Afghan military, and most are scheduled to be withdrawn by the end of 2016.
Carter said the Obama administration was open to having a stronger military relationship with the current Afghan unity government, led by President Ashraf Ghani. Ghani’s government has reset relations with the West after turbulent years when President Hamid Karzai often clashed with the United States.
“A lot has changed here, so much for the better,” Carter said. “Our priority now is to make sure this progress sticks. That is why President Obama is considering a number of options to reinforce our support for President Ghani’s security strategy, including possible changes to our timeline for the withdrawal of US troops.”
He also said the United States was “rethinking the details” of its counterterrorism operation in Afghanistan, but he did not elaborate on what he meant by that.
Already, Afghan and American officials have said, on the condition of anonymity, that the US forces were playing direct combat roles in many joint special operations raids and were not simply going along as advisers.
That is at odds with policy declarations by the administration, which has deemed the US role in the war essentially over, but reflects the reality in Afghanistan. Record numbers of Afghan soldiers, police, and civilians died in fierce fighting last year.
The Afghan and American leaders are expected to have more discussions about troop levels next month when Ghani visits President Obama at the White House.
Carter said he was in Afghanistan to begin his own assessment of the security situation since the United States wound down its combat mission last year. He said he had seen varying reports about Afghanistan, including some that said the Taliban were undergoing a resurgence and others that claimed a small group of militants had rebranded themselves Islamic State members.
Shortly after arriving, he was briefed by General John F. Campbell, the top US commander in Afghanistan, and General Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the greater Middle East.
Carter then met with Ghani and with Ghani’s former rival and current chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah. After that meeting, Carter and Ghani held a news conference and appeared to indicate that both sides were open to slowing the withdrawal of the troops.