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Kabul (AFP) Dec 8, 2010 A White House review of war strategy in Afghanistan will likely credit a troop surge with bolstering security but warn that the insurgency is far from defeated, a senior defence official said. The review, expected to be completed later this month, comes a year after President Barack Obama announced plans to deploy an additional 30,000 US troops in a bid to turn around the war. The review will probably look at targets for the growth of Afghan security forces and lay out plans for the start next year of a gradual handover of security duties to the Kabul government, the official told reporters late Tuesday. The assessment is expected to point to security gains in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand and around the capital Kabul, the official said. The review "will note that there has been progress, that the additional forces have enabled the expansion of the security bubbles in Helmand and in Kandahar and around Kabul and then in some smaller areas in the east," he said. "But that clearly there is a good deal more work that needs to be done." NATO members at a summit last month in Lisbon endorsed plans for the beginning of a "transition" to Afghan forces across the country in 2011. The White House assessment will back that plan and "there will be a line-up of certain events in 2011, that will include various recommendations on transition," the official said. The review would include a "discussion about the future size of the Afghan national security forces", he added. US officials and military leaders have said for months that the review was unlikely to produce a dramatic shift in the current strategy, which focuses on strengthening security in strategic areas and building up the Afghan police and army. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell, in Kabul as part of a visit by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, told reporters that the White House review was not complete and it was too early to say what the assessment would recommend. "There is no final product, so it's premature to draw definite conclusions," Morrell said.
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