WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will deploy dozens of additional U.S. military advisers to southern Afghanistan in coming weeks, a U.S. military official said, part of an effort to rebuild the Afghan army unit that has faced a bloody fight in Helmand province.
The advisers will be deployed to train the 215th Corps, the Afghan army unit based in Helmand, the official said. The poppy-rich province was once home to about 30,000 coalition troops and major operations run by U.S. Marines, but nearly all U.S. troops there were withdrawn by the end of 2014. In recent months, pitched battles have been fought there, some of which involve U.S. Special Operations troops working alongside Afghanistan commandos.
The Taliban has seized territory in several parts of the province, and was said this week to be close to recapturing Sangin, a strategically important district that the Afghan military and Taliban have been fighting over for months.
The deployment of additional military advisers will come as the U.S. Army rotates in a conventional infantry battalion from the 10th Mountain Division to replace one that has been deployed for months in southern Afghanistan to provide security on and around bases there. That has led to some media reports that the United States will send hundreds of new soldiers to Helmand, but the total number of U.S. troops likely will increase by only a few dozen, a U.S. military official in Afghanistan said.