Mullen working on strategy for Fata

WASHINGTON (Agencies) - The Bush administration, in the midst of a wide review of its war strategy in Afghanistan, is likely to recommend soon to the incoming Obama administration that the US push for further expansion of the Afghan army as the surest path to an eventual US withdrawal, reports Fox News quoting an American news agency.

It’s too late in President Bush’s tenure for a major change of direction in Afghanistan, but the White House wants to produce a kind of roadmap for the next administration, not just in terms of military effort but also in other areas such as integrating US and international civilian and military aid.

The strategy review, which began in September amid increasing militant violence and a growing US and allied death toll, is being coordinated at the White House and is expected to be presented by December. Defence officials would discuss emerging conclusions only on condition of anonymity because it is not yet completed.

The Bush administration is likely to endorse fulfilling a standing request by the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen David McKiernan, for about 20,000 additional US troops in 2009. But it has concluded that the emphasis increasingly should be on Afghan forces taking the lead.

A chief advocate of focusing more on speeding the training and equipping of a bigger Afghan army is Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who said last week that it represents the long-term answer in Afghanistan.

Gates also has emphasised limiting the depth of US military involvement in a country that has ground down foreign armies over centuries of conflict.