Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Brussels Tuesday for a meeting of NATO’s military committee focused on the war in Afghanistan. Dunford will join defense chiefs from other NATO nations in a meeting led by Czech Gen. Petr Pavel to discuss strategy for the allied effort in that country. Dunford will be joined in Brussels by US Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US Forces in Afghanistan, who told Congress in February that the 16-year-old war is now a stalemate and that the NATO train, advise, and assist mission there needs “a few thousand” more troops. UN Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last week that NATO is considering just such an increase. The NATO defense chiefs will also discuss threats to Europe from ISIS and Russia, according to a Defense Department press release. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, chief of US European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, will also attend the meeting, which comes ahead of the May 25 summit of NATO heads of state, to be attended by President Donald Trump.
The U.S. thwarted a drone attack on U.S. forces at Al Asad air base in western Iraq on April 22, marking the first time that American troops have been targeted since February, U.S. officials said. “We can confirm it was an attack on Al Asad,” a defense official told Air & Space…