BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — One after another, American fighter jets and armed drones screech down the runway at this northern military outpost, launching missions around the clock to support Afghan forces battling militants aligned with Islamic State and the Taliban.
More than 700 U.S. airstrikes have been carried out this year against the militants, twice as many as last year, as Afghan soldiers and police have struggled to contain a perpetual insurgency.
The ferocity of the fighting, more than 15 years after the U.S.-led military invasion, highlights Afghanistan’s deepening security crisis and unremitting reliance on the United States. The Taliban has waged a campaign of attacks on government-held provincial capitals throughout the country and is expected to continue its assault well into the winter months.
The Afghan military, riddled with corruption and taking orders from President Ashraf Ghani’s fragile government, lacks intelligence-gathering and other essential capabilities to ward off attacks. As a result, the security forces depend upon American air power and special forces to help them in their fight, two years after President Barack Obama formally ended U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan.
