Obama weighs troop levels

WASHINGTON - President Obama is seriously weighing a plan to keep as many as 5,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016, according to senior U.S. officials, a further setback of his goal to end U.S. military involvement there before he leaves office.

The plan presented in August by Gen. Martin Dempsey, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would focus primarily on counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other direct threats to the United States.

Obama has made no final decision on the proposal, which was developed before the Taliban captured Kunduz last month, the first major Afghan city to fall to the Taliban since the war began in 2001.

Afghan security forces, supported by American planes and combat advisers, have since been able to retake most, if not all, of the city. But the initial collapse of the Afghan forces in Kunduz has fed long-standing worries that Afghan forces lack the necessary air support, logistics, and intelligence capabilities to survive on their own after U.S. service members leave the country.

The 3,000 to 5,000 troops envisioned under Dempsey's proposal would be one part of an emerging plan for a global counterterrorism footprint, developed after the Islamic State's rampage through much of Iraq and Syria.

Gen. John Campbell, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, also has developed as many as five options that range from a small embassy force to as many as 7,000 troops.

Dempsey's plan, however, has been the primary focus of White House debates in recent weeks. Dempsey, who retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last month, fleshed out his initial August proposal before he left office.

His plan envisions the United States maintaining a few bases, perhaps two or three, that could be used as "lily pads" to strike groups that posed a direct threat to the United States, senior defense and administration officials said.

The "lily pad" bases would potentially house American drones and fighters jets as well as elite counterterrorism troops, and could be located at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul and one or two other airfields, said senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Several U.S. officials said that there are tentative plans to make a final decision on the post-2016 force soon - a move that would give the United States' NATO partners in Afghanistan more time to prepare for their own post-2016 commitments.

But other senior officials insisted that no such plans exist and that no announcement or final decision from Obama is imminent. A military official said the White House is expected to make a decision by the end of the year.

The president could choose to dismiss Dempsey's proposal and stick with his plan to reduce the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan to an embassy-based presence of about 1,000 American service members in Kabul, similar to the presence the United States left behind in Iraq after 2011. The White House already has approved at least two changes to the departure plan Obama announced in May 2014.