Obama to accelerate campaign in Afghanistan

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama was last night expected to announce he would send 30,000-34,000 more troops to Afghanistan over six months, an accelerated timetable – with an endgame built in – that would have the first marines there by Christmas.

With the full complement of new troops expected to be in Afghanistan by next summer, the heightened pace of Obama’s military deployment in the eight-year-old war appears to mimic the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, a 20,000-strong force addition under former President George W Bush. Similar in strategy to that mission, Obama’s Afghan surge aims to reverse gains by Taliban insurgents and to secure population centres in the volatile south and east parts of the country.

In a prime-time speech to the American people at 1.00am this morning from West Point that ends a 92-day review, Obama sought to help sell his much bigger, costlier war plan by tying the escalation to an exit strategy.