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WASHINGTON All American troops would withdraw from Afghanistan over the next three to five years under a new Pentagon plan being offered in peace negotiations that could lead to a government in Kabul that shares power with the Taliban.

The rest of the international force in Afghanistan would leave at the same time, after having mixed success in stabilizing the country since 2001. The plan is being discussed with European allies and was devised, in part, to appeal to President Trump, who has long expressed skepticism of enduring American roles in wars overseas.

The plan calls for cutting by half, in coming months, the 14,000 American troops currently in Afghanistan. It would task the 8,600 European and other international troops with training the Afghan military a focus of the NATO mission for more than a decade and largely shift American operations to counterterrorism strikes.

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Various elements of the plan were shared with The New York Times by more than a half-dozen current and former American and European officials. It intends to help talks with the Taliban that are being led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the American special envoy.

So far, the plan has been met with broad acceptance in Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels. But American officials warned that Mr. Trump could upend the new plan at any time.

And officials said that even if the peace talks broke down, the United States would go forward with shifting to counterterrorism missions from training Afghan forces.

Until the final withdrawal, several thousand American forces would continue strikes against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, including on partnered raids with Afghan commandos. The counterterrorism missions, and the militarys dwindling presence, are also critical to allowing the C.I.A. to operate in Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. Kon Faulkner, a Pentagon spokesman, said no decisions had been made as peace talks continued. The Defense Department is considering all options of force numbers and disposition, Colonel Faulkner said.

But European allies said they had been consulted about the proposal a stark contrast to Mr. Trumps surprise announcement in December to withdraw American forces from Syria.

The Europeans are perfectly capable of conducting the training mission, James Stavridis, a retired American admiral and former top NATO commander who is now with the Carlyle Group private equity firm. It is a smart division of labor to have the United States shift the bulk of its effort toward the special forces mission and having the Europeans do the training mission.

Mr. Stavridis said the two missions would be coordinated, including American logistical support and military backup for the European troops.

On Monday, American diplomats met with the Taliban in Qatar in the highest-level negotiations yet, including the attendance of Gen. Austin S. Miller, the commander of the international mission in Afghanistan. The negotiations paused on Wednesday and are set to resume on Saturday.

The two sides have sought to flesh out a framework agreement, decided in principle last month, for the full withdrawal of foreign troops and assurances by the Taliban to prevent terrorist groups that seek to attack the United States from using Afghan territory as a safe haven.

The Afghan government has not been a part of the negotiations because of Taliban reluctance to talk to President Ashraf Ghani or his envoys.

The prospect of an American military withdrawal has raised fears across the world that it could lead to the fall of the Western-backed government in Kabul and a return to the extremist rule of the Taliban. Before it was ousted in 2001, the Taliban was accused of human rights abuses, prohibited girls from attending school and imposed harsh penalties on accused heretics.

American officials have said any deal to withdraw international forces from Afghanistan must involve a cease-fire agreement and the inclusion of government leaders in the negotiations.

In a speech on Thursday in Kabul, Mr. Ghani warned Afghan security forces to be prepared for possible Taliban attacks ahead of any peace deal.

Peace is not easy; it needs courage and bilateral honor, Mr. Ghani said.

European officials have previously said they would rapidly pull their forces from Afghanistan if the American military was shorn too small to provide logistic support. American officials said enough troops would remain even if they were cut to 7,000 to continue the European training mission as outlined in the Pentagons plan.

In some respects, the focus on counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan is an endorsement of a plan by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the Obama administration debated its own war strategy in 2009. Mr. Bidens proposal was ultimately rejected in favor of a counterinsurgency plan, which called for training local forces and a surge of American troops, as pushed by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who was then the top commander in Afghanistan.

Taliban negotiators deeply oppose the proposal for American counterterrorism troops to remain in Afghanistan for up to five years, and officials were unsure if a shorter period of time would be accepted by the militants rank and file.

Scaling back the training mission could leave the beleaguered Afghan military not just vulnerable to attacks, but at risk of fracturing. In January, Mr. Ghani announced that more than 45,000 Afghan troops had died since 2014; Pentagon officials have called their casualty numbers unsustainable.

Despite pouring billions of dollars into the Afghan military for more than a decade, Pentagon audits show that a renewed effort to modernize the fledgling Afghan Air Force will most likely not be self-sufficient until the mid-2030s.

Speaking to lawmakers in December, the incoming commander for American troops in the Middle East, Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., said that Afghan forces could not sustain themselves without American and NATO support.

I do know that today it would be very difficult for them to survive without our and our coalition partners assistance, he said.

Current and former Defense Department officials said limiting American assistance to the Afghan military would require a delicate balance of providing just enough material support for the NATO training mission, known as Resolute Support, to ensure that Western allies remain invested without sacrificing counterterrorism operations.

European allies cited General Miller as describing the reduced troop levels as about doing more with less.

One former Defense Department official with knowledge of the talks said more American support for the training mission could be based outside Afghanistan and flown in when needed. European countries have relied heavily on American bases, supplies and other logistics throughout the war.

One German official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, underscored how reliant Berlins 1,300 troops are on medical evacuation aircraft and air support provided by the United States.

British forces may take part in counterterrorism operations, but those missions are expected to nearly completely be under American command.

Laurel Miller, who was a top State Department official working on Afghanistan and Pakistan policy during the Obama and Trump administrations, said it was risky to change the military mission in Afghanistan without a peace plan in place.

The idea of scaling down to a small CT-only mission has long been discussed in the U.S. government, she said. But, she said, if you stop backing up Afghan forces in their main fight, you cant very well keep working on your narrower priorities in isolation with Afghanistan falling apart around you.

It is also possible that international funding support for the Afghan government could end up going to the Taliban under a power-sharing agreement. But American and European officials called it critically necessary to continue funding Afghan security forces.

The track record for American-supported governments after peace treaties or troop withdrawals is shaky at best.

American-trained South Vietnamese fell to Communist forces two years after the United States withdrew from the Vietnam War in 1973. Large portions of the Iraqi Army collapsed in the face of an Islamic State offensive in 2014, just three years after the withdrawal of the American military and its trainers, necessitating a return to Iraq by international forces.

Some officials believe continued funding for the Afghan military is more important than an enduring international troop presence for the survival of Afghanistans government.

As long as we continue to provide funding to the Afghan security forces in the field, I think the security forces would be very capable of keeping order in the country, particularly in a scenario where the Taliban has come in from the cold, Mr. Stavridis said.

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Three U.S. Marines were killed when their convoy hit a roadside bomb on Monday near the main U.S. air base in Afghanistan, U.S. officials have confirmed. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The U.S. military corrected on Tuesday its initial report on the incident, saying an Afghan contractor working with the U.S. forces and initially reported dead was in fact alive.

The U.S. and NATO Resolute Support mission said the American troops were killed near the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, while three others were wounded in the explosion. The base in Bagram district serves as the main U.S. air facility in the country.

The wounded were evacuated and were receiving medical care, the statement said. It added that in accordance with U.S. Department of Defense policy, the names of service members killed in action were being withheld until after the notification of next of kin.

"The contractor who was reported as killed, is alive," the U.S.-led military operation in Afghanistan, Operation Resolute Support, said in a statement released Tuesday. "The contractor, an Afghan citizen, was initially treated along with other injured civilians, later identified as a contractor and treated at Bagram Airfield."

The fatalities, which bring to seven the number of U.S. soldiers killed so far this year in Afghanistan, underscore the difficulties in bringing peace to the war-wrecked country even as Washington has stepped up efforts to find a way to end the 17-year war, America's longest.

There are about 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan, supporting embattled Afghan forces as they struggle on two fronts facing a resurgent Taliban who now hold sway over almost half the country and also the Islamic State affiliate, which has sought to expand its footprint in Afghanistan even as its self-proclaimed "caliphate" has crumbled in Syria and Iraq.

Last year, 13 U.S. service members were killed in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have continued to carry out daily attacks on Afghan security forces despite holding several rounds of peace talks with the United States in recent months. The Taliban have refused to meet with the Afghan government, which they view as a U.S. puppet.

Meanwhile, the Taliban have agreed to take part in an all-Afghan gathering later this month in Qatar, where the insurgents maintain a political office. But the Taliban say they will not recognize any government official attending the gathering as a representative of the Kabul government, only as an individual Afghan participant.

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Afghanistan blast leaves 3 U.S. Marines dead, 3 others ...

U.S. forces in Afghanistan revised on Tuesday the death toll from a Taliban attack the previous day near the main American base in the country, saying two U.S. soldiers and a Marine were killed but not a contractor who was initially reported among the fatalities.

The U.S. and NATO Resolute Support mission issued a statement "to clarify initial reporting" about Monday's roadside bombing of an American convoy near the main U.S. base. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

The mission said a roadside bomb hit the convoy near the Bagram Airfield, killing three American service members, and that "the contractor who was reported as killed, is alive."

The statement said "the contractor, an Afghan citizen, was initially treated along with other injured civilians, later identified as a contractor and treated at Bagram Airfield."

Three other U.S. service members were also wounded in the attack. The base in Bagram district is located in northern Parwan province and serves as the main U.S. air facility in the country.

The wounded were evacuated and are receiving medical care, the statement said. It added that in accordance with U.S. Department of Defense policy, the names of service members killed in action were being withheld until after the notification of next of kin.

Christopher Slutman, a 15-year New York City fire department member, was among the three American service members killed. He leaves behind his wife, Shannon, and three daughters.

"Firefighter Slutman bravely wore two uniforms and committed his life to public service both as a New York City firefighter and as a member of the United States Marine Corps," Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a written statement.

In their claim of responsibility, the Taliban said they launched the attack and that one of their suicide bombers detonated his explosives-laden vehicle near the NATO base. The conflicting accounts could not be immediately reconciled.

On Tuesday, local Afghan officials said at least five Afghan civilians were wounded in the commotion after the attack on the American convoy.

Four were passers-by and the fifth was a driver of a car going down the road, said Abdul Raqib Kohistani, the Bagram district police chief. Abdul Shakor Qudosi, the district administrative chief in Bagram, said American soldiers opened fire immediately after their convoy was bombed.

Monday's U.S. fatalities bring to seven the number of U.S. soldiers killed so far this year in Afghanistan, underscoring the difficulties in bringing peace to the war-wrecked country even as Washington has stepped up efforts to find a way to end the 17-year war, America's longest.

There are about 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan, supporting embattled Afghan forces as they struggle on two fronts facing a resurgent Taliban who now hold sway over almost half the country and also the Islamic State affiliate, which has sought to expand its footprint in Afghanistan even as its self-proclaimed "caliphate" has crumbled in Syria and Iraq.

Last year, 13 U.S. service members were killed in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have continued to carry out daily attacks on Afghan security forces despite holding several rounds of peace talks with the United States in recent months. The Taliban have refused to meet with the Afghan government, which they view as a U.S. puppet.

Meanwhile, the Taliban have agreed to take part in an all-Afghan gathering later this month in Qatar, where the insurgents maintain a political office. But the Taliban say they will not recognize any government official attending the gathering as a representative of the Kabul government, only as an individual Afghan participant.

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3 American troops killed in roadside bombing in Afghanistan ...

On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress wrote what would prove to be one of the largest blank checks in the countrys history. The Authorization for Use of Military Force against terrorists gave President George W. Bush authority to attack the Taliban, the Sunni fundamentalist force then dominating Afghanistan that refused to turn over the mastermind of the attacks perpetrated three days earlier, Osama bin Laden.

In the House of Representatives and the Senate combined, there was only one vote in opposition: Barbara Lee, a Democratic representative from California, who warned of another Vietnam. We must be careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target, she said. We cannot repeat past mistakes.

Days later, Mr. Bush told a joint session of Congress just how broadly he planned to use his new war powers. Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there, Mr. Bush declared. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.

More than 17 years later, the United States military is engaged in counterterrorism missions in 80 nations on six continents. The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher.

The war on terror has been called the forever war, the long war, a crusade gone wrong. It has claimed an estimated half a million lives around the globe.

It is long past time for a reappraisal.

More than 2.7 million Americans have fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members and nearly 8,000 private contractors have been killed. More than 53,700 people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The blood was spilled and the money was spent based on the idea that war abroad could prevent bloodshed at home. As Mr. Bush explained in 2004: We are fighting these terrorists with our military in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond so we do not have to face them in the streets of our own cities.

But hatred is borderless. It is true that since 9/11, no foreign terrorist group has conducted a deadly attack inside the United States. But there have been more than 200 deadly terrorist attacks during that period, most often at the hands of Americans radicalized by ideologies that such groups spread. Half of those attacks were motivated by radical Islam, while 86 came at the hands of far-right extremists.

When Donald Trump ran for the White House, one of his central promises was to rein in overseas military adventurism and focus the countrys limited resources on its core strategic priorities. While Mr. Trumps foreign policy has been unwise if not self-defeating in many areas, he is right, as was Barack Obama, to want to scale back a global conflict that appears to have no outer bound.

That retrenchment needs to start where it all began: Afghanistan, which has remained for more than 17 years an open-ended war without an exit strategy or a focused target.

At the peak of NATO involvement in 2011, around the time Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, there were more than 130,000 soldiers from 50 nations fighting the Taliban and building up the Afghan national army, so it could stand on its own.

There are now 22,000 soldiers from 39 countries in Afghanistan. Roughly 14,000 of them are American. Their mission now includes less combat and more training. But the result remains the same: The intelligence communitys 42-page Worldwide Threat Assessment, released last week, devotes only a single paragraph to the war in Afghanistan, labeling it a stalemate.

This page has been supportive of the war in Afghanistan since it began. We criticized NATO countries in Europe for not sending enough soldiers. And we were critical of the Bush administration for its lack of postwar planning and for diverting resources to the war in Iraq.

Events have shown us to have been overly optimistic regarding the elected Afghan government, though we were rightly critical of its deep dysfunction. We have raised concerns about military tactics that cost civilians their lives and been skeptical of the Pentagons relentlessly rosy assessments of the progress made and the likelihood of success.

Mr. Trump repeatedly called for ending the war in Afghanistan. In 2012, for instance, he said the conflict there was not in the national interest. Once in office, however, he was persuaded by his military advisers in 2017 to increase the American presence in pursuit of a new plan for victory. The plan, Mr. Trump said, would defeat the Taliban and other terrorists handily.

The rules on airstrikes were relaxed, and their number skyrocketed. The Pentagon sent in 4,000 more troops, to augment the 10,000 that Mr. Obama left behind.

The plan is failing. More bombs and boots havent brought victory any closer. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed, maimed and traumatized. Millions of people are internally displaced or are refugees in Iran and Pakistan.

Poppy cultivation is up four times over 2002. Despite years of economic and military aid, Afghanistan remains one of the least developed countries in the world. Afghan security forces, which were supposed to take over from NATO troops, have lost a staggering 45,000 soldiers in battle since 2014 and cant fill their recruitment targets.

Mr. Trumps administration which announced it would withdraw 7,000 troops but has yet to do so is now negotiating with the Taliban, talks that are scheduled to continue this month. Thats a promising sign of a much-needed acknowledgment of reality.

It is time to face the cruel truth that at best, the war is deadlocked, and at worst, it is hopeless. The initial American objective bringing Bin Laden to justice has been achieved. And subsequent objectives, to build an Afghan government that can stand on its own, protect the population and fight off its enemies, may not be achievable, and certainly arent achievable without resources the United States is unwilling to invest.

Walking away from a war is not a strategy. But an orderly withdrawal of NATO forces can be organized and executed before the year is out and more lives are lost to a lost cause. Two Americans have been killed in combat already in 2019. No American soldiers should be fighting and dying in Afghanistan in 2020.

Recent talks between the United States and the Taliban appear to have made encouraging progress. Those talks might be most accurately described as a negotiated capitulation by the international forces. The Afghan government hasnt been party to the discussions because the Taliban doesnt consider it a legitimate entity just a puppet of the United States. In any case, once NATO forces leave, any treaty with the Taliban would be difficult to enforce.

But as part of any withdrawal discussions, it should be made clear to the Taliban, the Afghan government and neighboring nations that if the country is allowed to again become a base for international terrorism, the United States will return to eradicate that threat. The Taliban have paid a very high price for harboring Bin Laden and whatever their role in the future of the country are unlikely to trigger a return of American forces by making a similar mistake in the future.

The eventual withdrawal of American forces might be the only thing that all the parties to the conflict want to see happen. A majority of Americans want an end to the war. If Mr. Trump doesnt end the war by the end of the year, Congress can repeal the 2001 authorization of military force. Congress needs, in any event, to reconsider its blank check.

Congress should also make it easier for Afghans who worked with NATO forces and want to immigrate to the United States to do so. Many have already been waiting for years.

No one can pretend that a withdrawal, even with an agreement, is likely to make life better for the Afghan people in the short term. Thats an agonizing consequence that anyone who supports withdrawal must acknowledge. Some experts predict an even fiercer civil war as the Kabul government and its army weaken and warlords gain new power. That could mean more deaths, new refugee flows and cuts in international aid that could cripple the Afghan military.

The plight of women and girls in Afghanistan has been perilous in wartime, and it could become far bleaker if the Taliban topple the current government and reimpose their barbaric pre-2001 regime.

Yet its also possible that a decision to withdraw could prompt the Afghans, the Taliban and regional players like Pakistan, Russia, Iran, India and China to work together on a cooperative solution to stabilize Afghanistan and deny terrorists a regional base. Such a solution that preserves some of the civil society gains that the Afghans have made, while keeping the country free of international terrorists, is in the interests of all those parties.

The failure of American leaders civilians and generals through three administrations, from the Pentagon to the State Department to Congress and the White House to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to be studied for generations. Likewise, all Americans the news media included need to be prepared to examine the national credulity or passivity thats led to the longest conflict in modern American history.

The military has given honorable service. It is not the soldiers fault that their country sent them on a mission that was not achievable and failed to change course when that fact became apparent.

Any reckoning with the longest war in this countrys history must also grapple with one of its gravest miscalculations. We need to recognize that foreign war is not a vaccine against global terrorism. In fact, the number of Islamist-inspired terrorist groups has grown worldwide since 2001, often in response to American military intervention.

Nearly two decades of terrorist attacks here and abroad by attackers both foreign and domestic have shown the obvious: that terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy force that can be defeated, and it knows no borders. It can be thwarted in certain instances, but it cannot be ended outright.

If efforts to deal with international terrorism are to be sustainable indefinitely, they need to rely principally on intelligence and interdiction, diplomacy and development not war without aim or end.

The troops have fought bravely in Afghanistan. Its time to bring them home.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | End the War in Afghanistan - The New York Times

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April 8, 2019, 7:14 PM GMT

By Courtney Kube, Mosheh Gains and Tim Stelloh

Editor's note: A correction has been appended to this article after officials said a military contractor, previously identified as having been killed, was alive.

A car bomb outside of Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield on Monday killed three U.S. service members, and wounded three other American service members, officials said.

The injured personnel were evacuated and receiving medical care, the NATO-led Resolute Support mission said in a statement.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

The attack occurred amid peace talks between the Trump administration and the Taliban, an extremist Islamic movement that ruled Afghanistan until they were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The Taliban now operate as an insurgent force with control over large swaths of the country.

The United States is seeking to wind down its 17-year-old war in Afghanistan and withdraw the roughly 14,000 American troops deployed there.

It isnt clear how much progress has been made. Talks with the group concluded last month with no agreement to end the war, and a top Afghan official, Hamdullah Mohib, offered a scathing critique of the Trump administrations handling of those talks.

Mohib, who is Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's national security adviser, claimed that Kabuls government had been shut out of negotiations and sold out by Trumps envoy for reconciliation.

State Department officials dismissed his criticism, saying the U.S. remains in close contact with Ghani and other senior officials.

The Trump administration later demanded an apology from Mohib, who refused.

CORRECTION (April 9, 2019, 11:15 a.m.): An earlier version of this article contained incorrect information from U.S. officials about the status of the contractor. U.S. officials originally said the contractor had been killed, but on Tuesday said that the contractor, an Afghan citizen, was alive and had been treated for his injuries.

Courtney Kube is a national security and military reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Mosheh Gains is a Pentagon producer for NBC News.

Tim Stelloh is a reporter for NBC News, based in California.

Elisha Fieldstadt contributed.

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