In recent weeks, President Obama quietly broadened the US mission in Afghanistan in 2015, authorizing US forces to conduct missions against the Taliban and other groups that threaten Afghanistan, the US, or Coalition forces and to support Afghan troops in combat missions. US troop levels in Afghanistan, to be reduced to about 4,900 by the end of 2015, reportedly will not be affected by the new guidelines. The US has already committed roughly 10,000 troops to the Coalition’s 2015 “Resolute Support” training mission in Afghanistan. The US pledged to give the relief effort in Syria and Turkey an additional $135 million, bringing the total donated so far by the US for humanitarian relief for Syrians to more than $3 billion; the US will also admit some 7,000 refugees from Turkey into the US next year. The US has released detainee Muhammad al-Zahrani from Guantanamo and repatriated him to Saudi Arabia.
