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Pentagon confirms 11,000 troops are in Afghanistan, 2.6k more than reported before Pentagon confirms 11,000 troops are in Afghanistan, 2.6k more than reported before
(35 minutes later)
DETAILS TO FOLLOW The Pentagon has acknowledged that the number of the US troops deployed in Afghanistan stands at 11,000, significantly higher than figures voiced previously.
The troop levels, aimed at “more transparency,” were revealed at a joint news briefing by the Pentagon’s Chief Spokesperson and Joint Staff Director Wednesday.
The new numbers add 2,600 to the previously voiced figure of 8,400. They do not, however, represent a troop increase in line with US President Donald Trump's recently announced new Afghanistan strategy.
“This is not a troop increase,” Pentagon Chief spokeswoman Dana White specifically said.
Instead, the latest voiced figure is a “reality over the past 6 months” the Joint Staff Director added.
The 8,400 troops cap for Afghanistan was imposed during the Obama administration.
The release of the new figures followed the implementation of new accounting methods, as even the US Secretary of Defense James Mattis himself was unsure how many troops he had in Afghanistan.
“We had to change how they were accounting for them, because there were so many different pockets,” Mattis said earlier in August. “We in this building couldn’t figure it out. I had to change the accounting process because we couldn’t figure out how many troops we had there.”
Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White declined to provide US troop numbers for Iraq and Syria.