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Important work remains to be done in Afghanistan, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan told reporters traveling with him while en route on his first trip to the country Feb. 10. “I have not been directed to step down our forces in Afghanistan,” Shanahan said.

Ellis Domenech at The Federalist - "American men and women are still being sent to far-off lands, under-trained and under-equipped, to fight in conflicts that have little congressional oversight and little payoff for U.S. strategy."

"Details about the U.S. withdrawal from Syria remain sketchy. But whatever Washington ultimately decides to do, Trump’s announcement marked a cruel turn for Kurds across the Middle East."

"The Pentagon’s top official assured Afghanistan’s government on Monday that the U.S. wouldn’t desert the country’s security forces, the Afghan Defense Ministry said, signaling American support for the jittery government while the U.S. holds talks with the Taliban to end the country’s 17-year war."

"Key lawmakers said late Monday they had reached a tentative agreement over immigration rules and funding for border barriers, a deal that if signed by President Trump would avert another government shutdown set to start at week’s end."

"Winning in Afghanistan may not be an available option, but losing certainly is, and a precipitous departure, no matter how rationalized, would mean choosing to lose."

U.S.-backed forces are making “significant progress” against Islamic State fighters in the last sliver of its self-proclaimed caliphate, despite poor weather conditions that have played to the terror group’s advantage.

"The U.S. military should refine how it identifies and measures civilian casualties during combat operations, to include greater collaboration with humanitarian groups, according to a recently released Pentagon report."

"Three men suspected of being responsible for the deadliest terrorist attack in Kabul and another man accused of recruiting hundreds of Islamic State fighters were arrested on Saturday, the national intelligence agency said."

After 17 years of war, President Trump has called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Will Kabul fall to the Taliban if the United States disengages? CSIS experts Melissa Dalton, Seth Jones, and Dan Runde explain what’s happening in Afghanistan.

"The top U.S. commander in the Middle East said the military is pulling equipment out of Syria in preparation for a troop withdrawal that comes as the U.S.-led coalition has entered what it says is the last stages of its fight against Islamic State in Syria."

Acting U.S. Defense chief Pat Shanahan said Monday the Islamic State group remains a "global presence," as U.S.-backed fighters work to clear the last enclave the militants hold in eastern Syria. Shanahan told reporters traveling with him on a trip to Afghanistan that when it comes to the degree of Islamic State's capabilities, that varies from "residual pockets to sleeper cells."

"The U.S. is considering what cuts to U.S. force levels could support peace negotiations in Afghanistan while balancing risk there, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Sunday."

"The global shift from interstate conflicts to civil wars has required a conceptual change in how impartiality is conceived, raising questions regarding the concrete meaning of impartiality, how to implement it, and whether it’s a desirable feature of UN peacekeeping."

H.R. McMaster, John Hannah, etal at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies - Continue on for an introduction an link to this detailed assessment.

Continue on for an update on the situation in Syria.

"President Donald Trump’s planned trip Monday to the border city of El Paso, Texas comes days before U.S. government funding is due to lapse once again and as suspense builds over Trump’s vague but persistent threat to declare a national emergency if Congress declines to pay for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border."

"The Trump administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan is returning to the country after stops in Europe and the Middle East for an extended diplomatic tour aimed at pushing a U.S. peace initiative."

"U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said Saturday that they had begun an assault against Islamic State to clear the last enclave the militant group controls in eastern Syria."

"Golsteyn, a captain and Green Beret soldier at the time, said he had taken up an ambush position in the Taliban stronghold of Marja when U.S. forces released the man, a suspected Taliban bombmaker known as Rasoul. What happened next is at the center of an Army investigation that has stretched years, resulting in a murder charge against Golsteyn in December."

"The top U.S. negotiator in peace talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders says he hopes a peace agreement can be achieved before Afghanistan’s next set of elections just five months away."

"When terrorists in Africa delivered two devastating attacks last month, they invoked a battle cry seldom heard in recent militant activity on the continent: the Palestinian cause."

"Negotiations that would lead to a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan continue to advance, but are a long way from completion, the top U.S. envoy to U.S.-Taliban peace talks said Friday."

"President Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria has triggered a scramble among international powers and local forces to figure out how to fill the potentially destabilizing vacuum the Americans will leave behind."

"U.S. peace envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad says that although talks with the Taliban have produced the framework for a peace deal there is still a 'long way to go' before a final agreement. When Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani laid out the red carpet in 2017 for controversial Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar — once known as 'the Butcher of Kabul' for his role in the bloody conflict for the control of the capital in the 1990s — many thought he was trying to isolate the central Taliban leadership by luring factions to break away and join the government. It didn't work."