U.S. President Trump asked $5 billion for operations in Afghanistan

Beijing. February 14. Silkroadnews - The U.S. President Donald Trump expects to allocate more than $5 billion for the U.S. troops presence in Afghanistan, the amount has been requested from Congress in the country’s 2019 draft budget, the Afghan Telegraph Agency (AfTAG) reports.
According to the draft, the amount will go both to continue to assist the Afghan forces within the “Resolute support” mission framework and to conduct anti-terrorist operations against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and other radical Islamist organizations.
To remind, the new Afghan strategy assumes the U.S. strengthening its military presence and expanded the powers of the troops. It was reported earlier, after a series of large-scale terrorist attacks in the country at the beginning of the year, Donald Trump announced the deployment of major operations in response to the Taliban attacks.
In addition, this year the White House plans to allocate more than $630 million to civil assistance programs for Afghanistan - education, health, public administration and some other areas.
It should be noted that the U.S. regional strategy also includes putting pressure on Pakistan. After a series of warnings, the U.S. decided to suspend military aid to Pakistan.
With this the U.S. draft budget includes $256 million dollars, supposed to be allocated to programs of economic and other assistance to Islamabad, Pajhwok news agency reports.
At the moment, a $2-billion funds, the U.S. planned to provide Pakistan with within the framework of security assistance, remain frozen. The U.S. said the funds will be transferred to Islamabad only after Pakistan starts an active fight against terrorism on its territory.