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Although thousands upon thousands of well-meaning Americans on Facebook and Twitter are asking people to pray for the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, the grunts arent suffering any casualties in Afghanistan. Theyre home at Camp Pendleton, preparing to deploy to sea.

The latest hoax seems to have broken out on Facebook in late February before dying down in mid-March. It has come roaring back in recent days, however, triggering a flood of social-media support for the Darkhorse battalion that once suffered heavy losses in Afghanistan but isnt actually in combat now.

We are asking everyone to say a prayer for Darkhorse 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines and their families. They are fighting it out in Afghanistan and have lost nine Marines in four days. Please repost this, reads the typical message being circulated on social media.

As the rumors circulated in March and April, the battalion was training for a future deployment with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Between March 24 and April 4, for example, 3/5 Marines underwent a Marine Corps Combat Readiness Evaluation at Camp Pendleton.

This week, elements of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit have been participating in a Composite Unit Training Exercise COMPTUEX off the coast of Southern California aboard the Navys amphibious assault ship America.

The urban legend about 3/5 Marines currently suffering major combat losses in Afghanistan has roots in truth.

Deployed to Afghanistans restive Helmand Province in 2010-11, 3/5 Marines and the 1st Combat Engineers suffered 25 deaths and nearly 200 wounded. Some of the most brutal fighting was concentrated near the district of Sangin, triggering widespread support on the social media from well-wishers at the time.

After the Darkhorse Marines rotated home, calls for prayers for their safety continued to flare up in late 2012, both the summer and late winter of 2013, the summers of 2014 and 2015, late December of 2015 and then again two months ago, according to a San Diego Union-Tribune analysis of Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Twitter and Facebook followers often have demanded to know why the mainstream media or MSM refused to cover the old story, failing to realize that the Union-Tribune and other news outlets reported extensively about the Darkhorse battalions real deployment of 2010-11 in Afghanistan.

Internet rumor-slayer Snopes.com updated a special page on the Darkhorse dilemma on May 1, pointing to articles about the earlier deployment in the Union-Tribune and its sister paper the Los Angeles Times. Snopes rated the latest eruption of 3/5 prayer requests outdated.

cprine@sduniontribune.com

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Don't believe the social media rumors: Camp Pendleton's 'Darkhorse Marines' aren't dying in Afghanistan - The San Diego Union-Tribune

One enormous bomb did not change the war in Afghanistan. Neither did one gruesome attack by the Taliban on Afghan soldiers as the soldiers finished their prayersan attack so bloody thatAfghan authorities ran out of coffins to bury the dead.

But together the two events have shoved a war largely ignored by American politicians and the public back into the spotlight. And now urgent questions must be answered about the near- and long-term future of the fight, for the sake of the U.S. military fighting the war, the American public funding the war, and the Afghan forces working to defend their country.

Time may have passed since the last interagency policy review on Afghanistan, conducted by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009, but the questions in need of answers havent changed.

First, the United States must be clear about its goals in Afghanistan and how the United States, Afghanistan, and NATO countries can reach a shared understanding of what constitutes stability and success. During a 2009 visit to a NATO base in Afghanistan, an engineer working for Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the time, described some of the indicators they were measuring. Two days later, I was told that the U.S. embassy had its own indicators. It is likely that every other countrys embassy had yet more measures. And there was little to no coordination among them.

An Afghan soldier at a hospital after a Taliban attack on an Afghan army base, Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, April 2017.

Second, it is time to define the enemy, whether it is the Taliban, Islamic State (ISIS), or both. The 22,000 pound U.S. bomb that dominated headlines last weekend targeted ISIS, not the Taliban. The move caused consternation among Afghans, who wonder why the United States is not as aggressive when it comes to battling the group that is killing Afghans in far higher numbers. The United

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Adrift in Afghanistan | Foreign Affairs - Foreign Affairs (subscription)

Between the solution-less horror of North Korean nukes and the self-inflicted damage of Twitter diplomacy lies a decision that, while important in itself, will indicate a great deal about the foreign policy philosophy and geopolitical strategy of the Trump administration. What will the president do about the war in Afghanistan?

The good news? The choices are being clarified in a context that is the clearest strength of the Trump presidency: his first-rate national-security staff. Any meeting that includes Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster is a convening of the counterinsurgency A-team. Both are part of the surge generation of military officers who helped retrieve the Iraq War from disaster. Both know what near-defeat looks and smells like, and what might be involved in achieving slow, partial, conflicted progress. Both know the consequences of abandoning the battlefield before success is assured and the high cost of cleaning up after that mistake.

President Trump is in the process of being presented with a range of choices concerning Afghanistan. This type of review generally yields a Goldilocks-inspired briefing book, including a high-commitment option, a low-commitment option and a middle-range approach (which is often the one that the staff really likes). According to recent press accounts, McMasters preferred option might include a mini-surge in troops; greater resources for military and police training; efforts to improve Afghan governance; an increased pace of operations against the Taliban; and no artificial timetable for American withdrawal. The goal would be to strengthen President Ashraf Ghanis government just enough, and weaken the Taliban just enough, that some kind of peace settlement could be negotiated.

This is conceived as a sustained effort, unlike President Barack Obamas reluctant, time-limited Afghan surge. The cost of the McMaster approach has been estimated at $23 billion a year which is a serious commitment, given that Afghanistans entire gross domestic product was less than $20 billion in 2015.

None of this has been decided. And who knows how and what Trump will decide. But he will face (at least) two major problems if he agrees to anything in the reported range.

First, Trump and his team will need to convince Congress and the country that Ghanis government which has high ambitions and few capabilities is a credible partner. Both Mattis and McMaster have recently been to Kabul. What evidence did they find that the Afghan government could absorb added help?

Second, the president will have difficulty communicating a decision of this type because it sounds suspiciously like nation-building. And it would be nation-building in all but name.

Trump is facing the inescapable logic of internationalism. It is true that the United States cant be everywhere in the world. But the United States can be struck by threats emerging anywhere in the world (with Afghanistan as Exhibit A). Preventing those threats requires the ability to strike from a distance (with drones, missiles and special operations) and the existence of capable partners and proxies who control and police their own territory.

How are partners and proxies strengthened? By providing military hardware and the skills to use it. By training police who are governed by the rule of law. By encouraging effective, non-corrupt governance. By encouraging health and economic opportunity as alternatives to resentment and radicalism.

This is the reality that Trump is discovering in his first contact with the problems of the world. The United States needs to employ nonmilitary tools of influence things such as training and foreign assistance precisely because they can reduce the need for large-scale military interventions. Putting America first actually requires putting our partners in a generous and respected second.

The United States eventually needs a capable, nonradical government in Afghanistan that controls as much of its own territory as possible. This will not be achieved by bombing the hell out of the Taliban alone. It will also not be achieved without bombing the hell out of the Taliban, because it has no current incentive to come to the peace table.

Only one of these facts the bombing-the-hell-out-of-the-enemy part fits Trumps instincts. But somehow he will need to understand and explain to the American public the strengthening-our-partners element. Trump should take comfort in the fact that George W. Bush made a similar transition. He ran against Clintonian nation-building in his 2000 campaign. Yet in his second inaugural address, in 2005, Bush located American success in the success and freedom of others.

As a speechwriter I was along for the ride on this learning curve, which bent dramatically on Sept. 11, 2001. Because Afghanistan, of all places, had been forgotten.

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What will Trump do about Afghanistan? There's a good model to follow. - Washington Post

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was due to meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani after arriving in the capital Kabul on Thursday.

A heavily armed convoy escorted the notorious warlord - infamous for shelling Kabul in the early 1990s during theAfghan civil war - from eastern Nangarhar province to Kabul, the interior ministry and Hekmatyar's spokesman confirmed.

The former Afghan premier is set to play an active role in politics following a deal in September last year between the Afghan government and his militant group, Hezb-i-Islami.

In February, the UN Security Council lifted sanctions against Hekmatyar, which includeda freeze that had been put on his assets, a comprehensive travel banand an arms embargo.

Hekmatyar, the leader of the Islamist organization Hezb-i-Islami, had occasionally collaborated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban after the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan. He was Afghanistan's prime minister from 1993 to 1994, and again briefly in 1996, before the Taliban took over Kabul.

The powerful warlord's return comes at a time when US President Donald Trump is reviewing his country's Afghan policy and is likely to announce a new strategyin the coming weeks.

Hekmatyar is set to play an active role in Afghan politics

The involvement of Russia in Afghan politics has also increased substantially in the past few months, with many analysts suggesting that Moscow aims to minimize Washington's role in Afghanistan with the help of Islamabad and Beijing. US officials hinted last month that Russia is arming Taliban insurgents.

Peace process

Members of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, the body tasked with forging reconciliation with the Taliban and other armed groups, believe Hekmatyar could pave the way for other militant groups like the Taliban to join the government.

President Ghani's National Unity Government is under pressure for failing to reach a peace agreement with the Taliban or with other armed groups. Efforts by Afghanistan to reconcile with the Taliban using Pakistan's support seem to have hit a dead end, with Kabul blaming Islamabad of not fulfilling its promises.

Amid worsening ties with Afghanistan and the US, Pakistan has drifted closer to China and Russia and has sought their help to end the Afghan conflict.

Hekmatyar is believed to have good relations with Pakistan's military establishment, but unexpectedly the former premier warned Afghanistan's neighbors against meddling in his country's internal matters.

"I hope that our neighbors do not make Afghanistan into a battlefield for their political and military rivalry," Hekmatyar said on April 29 in his first public appearance in nearly two decades.

He also urged Taliban insurgents to join a "caravan of peace."

"Stop the pointless, meaningless and unholy war," Hekmatyar told a gathering of his followers and Afghan politicians in Laghman province, east of the capital, Kabul.

Are the Afghan Taliban willing to sign a similar peace deal with Kabul?

A divisive figure

Some experts are of the view that the Afghan government's engagement with Hekmatyar could be risky.

"There are still uncertainties as to what he is going to do," one senior official in the Afghan government told Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity. "Is he going to be a partner in the government or a rival?"

Hekmatyar's return is also likely to intensify the schisms between various factions in the unity government. Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and his Tajik supporters would be perturbed by the influential Hezb-i-Islami leader's return, with many believingit will further entrench Pashtun dominance in the government.

"Hekmatyar's rhetoric about being dominant and controlling has never changed and he is after power and authority," said Abdul Hodod Paiman, a Tajik member of parliament from Hekmatyar's home city of Kunduz.

Is the Afghan unity government falling apart?

But others hope he could bring much-needed peace tothe war-torn country.

"He is an influential figure and has a lot of support across the country and he can be a key in bringing peace to the country," said Safiullah Muslim, a member of parliament from the northern province of Badakhshan.

Some observers believe the Afghan government's main concern right now is the expansion of the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) group in the country. Kabul, with the help of Hekmatyar and the Taliban, can stop the IS advance, and Washington and Moscow appear to be on the same page on this issue.

Negotiating from a weak position

On the other hand, President Ghani is facing major internal challenges. The government's approval rating has been decreasing, and the Islamist insurgency seems bloodier than ever.

A major anti-government protest in Kabul in May last year highlighted the fragile political situation in the country and the decline in support for Ghani's administration among Afghans.

This is why experts believe Ghani wants to strengthen his support among Pashtuns who supported Hekmatyar during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990's.

"Hekmatyar still has a lot of support among people all over Afghanistan, and his union with the government can bring a lot of new people to their side," Faiz Mohammad Zaland, a lecturer at Kabul University, told DW.

Also, Hekmatyar's close ties with Pakistan could help improve Kabul's tense relations with Islamabad. At the same time, some experts warn that the Afghan government should be cautious about Pakistan's increased role in Afghan politics.

Additional reporting by Masood Saifullah and Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi.

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Can warlord Hekmatyar help stabilize Afghanistan? - Deutsche Welle

An Afghan soldier walks at a checkpoint last month on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. Rahmat Gul/AP hide caption

An Afghan soldier walks at a checkpoint last month on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan.

As the U.S. considers sending more troops to Afghanistan and reviews its current strategy there, a new report from a U.S. government watchdog paints a bleak picture of the country's security and corruption issues.

Congress has appropriated more than $117 billion total to Afghanistan reconstruction efforts, and 60 percent of that has gone to the support the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). At the same time, Taliban militants have gained territory during this past year, and the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan says the conflict is at a "stalemate."

The findings were detailed in the latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR a military agency set up by Congress that audits U.S. spending in Afghanistan.

"Security is the most obvious and urgent challenge," SIGAR says. "Security incidents throughout 2016 and continuing into the first quarter of 2017 reached their highest level since UN reporting began in 2007."

Conflict-related civilian casualties reached their highest levels since the U.N. began documenting them in 2009, the report states, with 3,498 civilians killed and 7,920 injured.

And the casualty toll within the ranks of the ANDSF "continued to be shockingly high," the report says, with 807 killed within the first six weeks of the year.

That figure does not include the massive Taliban-claimed attack at a military base in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif that killed at least 100 Afghan soldiers.

"The ANDSF faces many problems: unsustainable casualties, temporary losses of provincial and district centers, weakness in logistics and other functions, illiteracy in the ranks, often corrupt or ineffective leadership, and over-reliance on highly trained special forces for routine missions," the report says.

The report points out two other huge problems for the ANDSF corruption and trouble holding on to members. "About 35% of the force does not reenlist each year," according to SIGAR, and last month, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said it "sacked 1,394 of its officials for corruption in the past year."

The report describes these problems as "corrosive," saying they could undercut nonmilitary goals. At the same time, it quotes U.S. Forces in the country as saying the ANDSF is "generally performing better than at this same point last year."

Another huge problem: The production of opium, a trade that supplies some 60 percent of the Taliban's funding, "stands near record levels."

Previous SIGAR reports have pointed out other major issues. For example:

It's not entirely bad news SIGAR says the country's healthcare and education sectors are improving. U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Aaron O'Connell, who edited a new book about Afghanistan, detailed the improvements to education in an NPR interview last month:

"Under the Taliban, there was less than a million people in schools and almost zero women. Now there are between 6 and 9 million Afghans going through education, and about a third of them are women. All of this is real progress, and it's sustainable. It pays dividends in the years that follow."

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who visited the country last week, has said that the Trump administration is reviewing U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.

And as it does so, SIGAR is calling for a "fresh, frank look at the reconstruction program," involving assessing which U.S.-funded programs are stronger and weaker, and preparing to cut the weaker ones. He also wants to see a U.S. counternarcotics strategy, which has been "on hold for nearly two years."

As O'Connell put it, there is "still space to reason what the appropriate amount of blood and treasure is to spend on a mission that seems to be in stalemate at best, backsliding at worst."

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In Afghanistan, Security Incidents And Civilian Casualties At Record Highs - NPR