Ashton Carter, U.S. Defense Chief, Makes Unannounced Visit to Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter arrived in Afghanistan on Friday for his last planned trip to the country as America’s defense chief and as a 15-year war continues to rage.

Mr. Carter, accompanied by his wife, Stephanie, was to speak to American troops as well as meet with Afghan leaders during his visit, which was unannounced, Peter Cook, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Twitter.

About 9,800 American troops are in Afghanistan. Their roles include a counterterrorism mission against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and the training and advising of Afghan troops as part of a larger NATO mission.

Mr. Carter will meet with American troops at Bagram Air Base, the site of a suicide attack last month that killed two American service members and two American contractors. A third soldier died on Tuesday of wounds from that attack.

As the Taliban have pushed the limits of Afghan forces over the past two years, overrunning districts and threatening crucial provincial centers, American advisers have found themselves drawn back to the front lines, with the division between combat and advice increasingly blurred.

Afghan and Western officials fear that the vast ungoverned space in Afghanistan could once again turn into a terrorist haven. Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the chief of the United States Central Command, recently said that the Afghan government controlled about 60 percent of the country and the Taliban about 10 percent, with the remainder contested. Which group or groups fill those voids of ungoverned territory “is something we’ll have to contend with,” he said.

Gen. John W. Nicholson, the commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has said that Afghanistan and Pakistan host the highest concentration of terrorist groups in the world, with about 20 of the 98 groups designated as such by the United Nations and United States operating in the region.

Those groups include remnants of Al Qaeda, which has small pockets of operatives in east and southeastern Afghanistan, and affiliates of the Islamic State, which have established a foothold in eastern Afghanistan and are trying to bring violence to urban centers through suicide attacks that largely target civilians.

President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen Gen. James N. Mattis to succeed Mr. Carter as defense secretary.

Published by: www.nytimes.com