UPDATE: 10:30 a.m. – President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious.
“The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious,” Obama said at the White House. “Even as they improve, Afghan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be.”
ORIGINAL STORY
President Barack Obama will give remarks Wednesday on Afghanistan, the White House announced.
He will be joined at 10:25 a.m. ET by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford.
Obama granted U.S. military commanders last month more freedom to strike Taliban targets in support of Afghan troops, Carter announced at a summit at the time.
“This is using the forces we have here in a better way,” Carter told the Defense One Tech Summit on June 10, calling the expanded authority “a good use of the combat power that we have there.”
At least 34 people were killed last week west of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul when two suicide bombers attacked a convoy of buses carrying newly graduated police officers. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said in a statement.
