Report: U.S. quietly expanding military role in Afghanistan

Report: U.S. quietly expanding military role in Afghanistan
(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Despite the fact that President Obama declared the war in Afghanistan over months ago, U.S. forces are still conducting airstrikes against low-level insurgent forces there, The New York Times reports. Though administration officials have maintained that the troops that have remained there work only on counterterrorism efforts and to train Afghan forces to fight the Taliban, officials in both the U.S. and Kabul say that America's involvement in Afghanistan is more aggressive and wide-ranging than previously thought.

"Rather than ending the American war in Afghanistan, the military is using its wide latitude to instead transform it into a continuing campaign of airstrikes — mostly drone missions — and Special Operations raids that have in practice stretched or broken the parameters publicly described by the White House," the report adds. Read the full report at The New York Times.

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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.