Afghan to review military plan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has ordered a top-to-bottom review of the practices of the country's defense forces, including discussing the resumption of controversial night raids banned by his predecessor.<br /> <br /> The move appears aimed at revamping the military for the fight against the Taliban amid new indications that U.S. and international forces will play a greater role than initially envisaged after the 13-year U.S.-led combat mission formally ends next month.<br /> <br /> The wholesale review of existing military operations is already underway, presidential spokesman Nafizullah Salarzai told The Associated Press, saying Ghani had instructed the National Security Council to "work on a manual of guidelines and standards for military operations."<br /> <br /> Under new guidelines quietly approved by President Barack Obama, U.S. troops may once again engage Taliban fighters, not just al-Qaida terrorists, U.S. administration officials confirmed last week. Until Obama broadened the guidelines, U.S. forces were to have limited Afghanistan operations to counterterrorism missions against al-Qaida after this year, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss Obama's decisions by name.<br /> <br /> The emerging rethink in both Kabul and the U.S. appears linked, at least in part, to this year's successes by jihadi radicals in Syria and especially Iraq - which have made the December 2011 pullout from Iraq seem less successful and forced a reengagement there by the West.<br /> <br /> Salarzai would not give precise details of what military procedures were under review, though he said the discussions include a possible lifting of the ban on night raids. First Deputy President Abdul Rashid Dostum said the raids might resume early next year.<br /> <br /> Both underlined that the ban has not yet been lifted. "This is being worked on and is not yet final," Salarzai said.<br /> <br /> Resuming night raids would be a significant shift. The operations, in which Afghan and U.S. Special Forces entered homes to search for insurgents under cover of darkness using night-vision goggles, were banned by former president Hamid Karzai in 2011.<br /> <br /> The raids were highly unpopular with the Afghan public, with many people viewing them as a violation of privacy and of the traditional sequestering of women. The military, however, regarded them as essential to the anti-Taliban fight, and has been lobbying to resume them ever since.

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