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The Pentagon has not made a final decision about how many troops will be sent to Afghanistan to try and break the stalemate in that country's 16-year-long war, two senior defense officials told Fox News Thursday.

The officials said that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress on multiple occasions this week that a new strategy would not be delivered until mid-July. Their statements contradict an Associated Press report that claimed almost 4,000 additional U.S. troops would go to Afghanistan and an announcement could come as soon as next week.

For the past two months, the Pentagon has been considering sending between 3,000 and 5,000 U.S. troops to help train and advise Afghan forces.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis before he testifies at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Monday, June 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

This week, President Trump gave Mattis the authority to decide how many troops he needed in Afghanistan. In April, the president granted Mattis similar authority to decide how many U.S. forces were needed to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

Over the course of four separate appearances before lawmakers this week, Mattis said he wanted U.S. troops to operate alongside the Afghan Army and help them by calling in airstrikes in the hope of making an impact on the battlefield against the Taliban. Currently, the military operates in more of a planning role alongside Afghan forces.

Earlier this week, Mattis told a Senate panel the Obama administration's decision to cut the number of troops in Afghanistan and put restrictions on air power was "misguided."

"When we reduced our forces there, I believe in, what was probably in hindsight a misguided application of our forces, we restricted them from using our air support with some idea that we would wean them off the need of it," Mattis said to the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.

The number of American airstrikes in Afghanistan have increased significantly under President Trump. April saw more bombs dropped there than in any month since 2012, according to the Air Force.

In February, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, said he needed a "few thousand" additional troops from the United States and NATO.

U.S. forces and Afghan security police are seen in Asad Khil near the site of a U.S. bombing in the Achin district of Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP Photo)

Since then, the Pentagon has been planning for an increase and taking recommendations to the White House. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. told Congress this week that President Trump has seen some of the early plans. Officials tell Fox News that there have been a number of National Security Council meetings at the White House as different options are discussed, according to officials.

Earlier this week, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chided Mattis and Dunford for not having a strategy in Afghanistan.

Mattis responded by admitting that the U.S. "isn't winning," making him the latest senior U.S. military leader to describe the war against Islamic extremists in Afghanistan as a stalemate.

Today there are 8,400 American troops on the ground in Afghanistan, down from a high of 100,000 ground forces in August 2010. Shortly before leaving office, President Barack Obama ordered 1,500 troops withdrawn from the country after scrapping plans for a near-total withdrawal that was supposed to take place by the end of 2016.

Last weekend, three U.S. Army soldiers were shot and killed by Afghan soldiers in a reminder of the danger facing Americans there.

A farmer works on his field, on the outskirts of the village of Madakhel, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Enric Marti)

Today, the U.S. military estimates that the Afghan government only controls roughly 60 percent of the country. The Taliban is the most prominent insurgent group, but they are not the only concern. ISIS-affiliated fighters have taken hold of portions of eastern Afghanistan.

On Thursday, ISIS claimed to have captured Tora Bora, a mountain hideout in Afghanistan once used by Usama bin Laden, but the Taliban dismissed the claim, saying they were still in control of the cave complex.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

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Afghanistan: Pentagon says no decision yet on number of ...

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE June 16, 2017 06/16/2017 1:39 pm By Adam K. Raymond Share Three of the U.S. soldiers already in Afghanistan. Photo: Ernesto Londoo/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will announce plans to send as many as 4,000 additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan next week in an attempt to help the withering Afghan military, the AP reports.

The U.S. currently has around 8,400 troops assisting the Afghan military in Afghanistan. Theyre serving alongside another 5,000 troops from NATO forces. The increase in American boots on the ground is needed to slow the progress of the Taliban, Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

The Taliban had a good year last year, and theyre trying to have a good one this year, he said. Mattis added that additional U.S. troops would provide air and artillery support to Afghan forces, who have seen 5,000 killed in 2016 alone.

Mattis has only this week gained the power to set troop levels in Afghanistan, an authority granted by President Trump on Tuesday. The move drew harsh criticism from the New York Times editorial board, which said it leaves the impression that he is cowed by the weighty responsibility of sending more Americans into battle, and is looking to put that onus on Mr. Mattis so he has somebody to blame if things go wrong.

Other critics have questioned the wisdom of sending new troops to Afghanistan without a clearly defined strategy. At Tuesdays hearing with Mattis, Senator John McCain emphasized the need for a plan. Were now six months into this administration, he said. We still havent got a strategy for Afghanistan. It makes it hard for us to support you when we dont have a strategy.

Another person whos not so sure about Mattiss plan to build up troops is the anonymous veteran who sent this depressing message to Washington Post reporter Thomas Gibbons-Neff.

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The military has confirmed the death of a senior member and the destruction of a media hub of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria-Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Afghanistan branch of the terrorist group.

A June 3 airstrike in Achin, Nangarhar province, killed Jawad Khan, the senior director of ISIS-K media production, and destroyed a major media production hub for the group, disrupting its connections to ISISs main branch in Syria, according to a Friday statement.

Khan's removal will deprive the group of an experienced media production director and skilled propagandist, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan said.

Commander Gen. John Nicholson said the death will disrupt the ISIS-K network, degrade their recruitment process and hinder their attempts to conduct international operations.

There is no safe haven for ISIS-K in Afghanistan. With our Afghan partners we will continue to aggressively target ISIS-K and defeat them, Nicholson added.

The statement said there were no civilian casualties associated with the strike.

U.S. forces tout the death as reports Friday indicate the Pentagon will send 4,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan adding to the roughly 8,400 already there to break a stalemate in the 16-year war with the Taliban and al Qaeda and newer terrorist groups including ISIS.

The Pentagon has since pushed back on those reports and said a decision has not yet been made.

The announcement comes the same day that Russia said it may have killed the leader of ISIS in an air strike in Raqqa, Syria, last month.

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