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Obama to announce major Afghan troop surge

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 01 December 2009

US President Barack Obama is expected to announce plans to send roughly 30,000 extra soldiers to Afghanistan in a long-awaited shift to the war strategy.

US Marine, Afghanistan (Reuters)

After three months of deliberations it is hoped Obama's decision will lay out a time frame for winding down American involvement in the country.

Officials have said the speech will also convey how he intends to handover the conflict to President Hamid Karzai's government in Kabul. Obama will stress that the US does not have an "open-ended commitment" in Afghanistan. He will also call on Karzai to crackdown on corruption

Obama has been deliberating over a report by the US's top commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal that lays out a number of options for troop numbers. Gen McChrystal has been lobbying the US and Nato to send reinforcements to the country.

Currently there are roughly 68,000 US troops and 42,000 allied forces there. Since 2001 there has been a steady increase of soldiers committed to the country. View the list in full here.

Obama's speech at the US Military Academy in New York will take place at 8pm local time- 1am Wednesday GMT.

Yesterday Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed that Britain would send an extra 500 troops to Afghanistan.

He told the Commons that now three key conditions for increasing troop numbers had been met reinforcements would be sent. The three were that soldiers would be properly equipped, that coalition partners would also commit extra troops and that the Afghan government would boost its own security effort.

He said the "military surge" would be complemented by a "political surge" with more Afghan police, a police reform plan and more effective and accountable local administration in the country.

He added that the government would be "failing in our duty" if it did not work with coalition partners to counter the threat posed by the Taliban and al-Qaida and help ensure a "safer Britain".

Brown spoke to Obama via a video call last night in which they "agreed on the importance of combining military and political strategies in Afghanistan, as well as on the need for continued action in Pakistan," a Downing Street spokesman said.

Obama briefed the prime minister on the US troop decision which has already been passed down to senior military commanders.

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