The U.S. war against the Taliban ended, at a technical and official level, on December 31, 2014. Since then, Taliban have not been targetable just by status of being Taliban.
They would need to present some more specific and imminent threat, to be the target of an attack.
The right of self defense against imminent threats is a very real concept in international law, and is important in administration thinking. But we have an extremely loose conception of what constitutes imminent threat. It is not at all what the international law concept really means, where imminent means imminent. Where you hardly have time to think before responding.
The fight against the Taliban was intended to be left to Afghan forces, not Americans, who were supposed to strike the insurgents only if under direct threat.
But in the 18 months since, the administration has allowed the self-defense rationale to be stretched to its limits.
Obama Loosens Restrictions on U.S. Forces Fighting Taliban in Afghanistan, Matthew Rosenberg, New York Times
And there is something very confused about marching into territory held by people who are at war with you. And not being at war with them, just setting out on self defense attacks, not considered as offensive action.
Ever since the 2014 change, I’ve struggled with how to report on a war that is not considered a war. For example, that I am reporting here that the U.S. is again at war with the Taliban. It’s a technical change, and an important one, and it has an absurdity to it.
Last year, U.S. action in Kunduz, including the air attack on the M.S.F. Kunduz trauma center, did not fit into either of the two proclaimed U.S. missions.
The American combat mission in Afghanistan had ended in 2014, as announced by President Obama in a Rose Garden speech that year. The remaining American forces were supposed to be restricted to two narrow roles: A noncombat NATO training mission, called Resolute Support, was there to advise Afghan forces, while the American counterterrorism force under Freedom’s Sentinel was charged with targeting Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. “The U.S. military will not be engaged in specific operations targeting members of the Taliban just because they’re members of the Taliban,” Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, told reporters in 2014.
Doctors With Enemies: Did Afghan Forces Target the M.S.F. Hospital?, Matthieu Aikins, New York Times
With neither mission applying, approval of missions was a senseless choice of one or the other.
The distinction between the two — which were both led by Campbell — would become almost meaningless in Kunduz. The same unit could be carrying out a training mission one minute and a counterterrorism one the next. According to the military, in the first four days of fighting in Kunduz, 13 airstrikes were conducted under Resolute Support and nine under Freedom’s Sentinel. Before conducting strikes, aircrews would sometimes radio to ask under which mission they were about to shoot.
The administration clearly has nuanced theories about lawful attack under the law of war. But we have little information on how the assassination of Afghan Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour was justified.
Presumably it comes from the loose conception of self defense against imminent attack. That Mansour was in the Balochistan region of Pakistan is important here. The administration recognizes distinctions of hot battlefields or not. Balochistan is not considered a hot battlefield, so far as anyone knows. Could, in administration thinking, Akhtar Mansour have been killed when he was in Iran?
The United States has now expanded its authorities to target Taliban in Afghanistan.
The move, and the scope of the change, is not at all surprising. There has been obvious pressure for it from the U.S. and Afghan militaries, discussed in the newspapers.
Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington DC, said the US defence department had wanted to carry out the plan for months.
"The concern about the resurgence of the Taliban has been growing in the Pentagon," Jordan said.
US widens military role in Afghanistan to fight Taliban, Al Jazeera
The Pentagon and White House have been debating for weeks not only about a change to U.S. troops levels in Afghanistan but whether to amend the current military authorities that restrict U.S. airstrikes against Taliban targets.
Pentagon cancels announcement of change in U.S. Afghanistan policy, Barbara Starr, CNN (Thursday)
The changes include allowing more close air support of the Afghan military; and the U.S. accompanying Afghan regular military, not just special forces, on operations.
President Barack Obama has approved giving the U.S. military greater ability to accompany and enable Afghan forces battling a resilient Taliban insurgency, in a move to assist them more proactively on the battlefield, a U.S. official told Reuters.
The senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the decision would also allow greater use of U.S. air power, particularly close air support.
However, the official cautioned: "This is not a blanket order to target the Taliban."
Obama's decision again redefines America's support role in Afghanistan's grinding conflict, more than a year after international forces wrapped up their combat mission and shifted the burden to Afghan troops.
Exclusive: Obama approves broader role for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Phil Stewart, Reuters
The expanded authorities, proposed by Gen. John Nicholson, the new top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, will allow troops to now accompany Afghan conventional forces on missions and conduct offensive strikes against the Taliban or other threats when the strike would have a “strategic effect on the battlefield,” a senior defense official said on the condition he not be named.
Previously U.S. advisers were limited to working with Afghan special forces. U.S. firepower was limited to specific strikes in defense of their own troops or in the defense of the Afghan forces they were advising, in circumstances of counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaida and the Islamic State group or in situations “in extremis” – where there was a specific threat that warranted a response from U.S. forces.
The expanded role for U.S. forces in Afghanistan will also apply to the use of close air support and surveillance drones in offensive strikes, the official said. While U.S. forces will be accompanying conventional Afghan forces, they will not be on the front lines, the official said.
“The president made a decision to enable the commander there to have some additional authority to act proactively -- that is to anticipate situations in which the Afghan security forces would benefit from our support ... rather than be simply reactive,” Carter said Friday during a technology summit speech in Washington, D.C.
Another defense official told Stars and Stripes that the Pentagon was in the process of drafting orders that would lay out guidelines for the new authorities, including the rules of engagement and whether U.S. forces will be inserted to accompany the Afghan forces at brigade or smaller-sized units.
US forces in Afghanistan get Obama OK for offensive operations, Tara Copp, Stars and Stripes
The president’s decision to expand the military’s mission just seven months before he leaves office signaled just how far the United States remains from achieving his goal of ending the American military role in Afghanistan.
Obama Loosens Restrictions on U.S. Forces Fighting Taliban in Afghanistan, Matthew Rosenberg, New York Times