Department of Defense Press Briefing by Gen. Shoffner via Teleconference from Afghanistan

CAPTAIN JEFF DAVIS: Good morning and happy Tuesday.

We're pleased to be joined today by Brigadier General Will Shoffner, coming to us from the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan for an update on operations there, in what we hope is going to be the first of a series of regular briefs that we'll be doing to provide greater insight on our operations there to support the Afghan national security and defense forces.

And, general, if you can hear us, we'll turn it over to you for your opening comments.

BRIGADIER GENERAL WILSON SHOFFNER: I can hear you, Jeff, and thanks for that introduction.

Good morning to those of you in Washington, and thanks for making time to join me today. What I'd like to do is start just by giving you an update with the situation here in Afghanistan, and then we'll move to your questions.

I'll first start with the role of Resolute Support. So, Resolute Support's mission is train, advise and assist -- train, advise and assist for the Afghan ministries, so that's at the ministerial level, and then down to the Afghan national army corps. And so we do train, advise and assist in four out of their six corps. And to explain that a little better, that's -- that's advising with contact roughly five times a week. That's what we call level one train, advise and assist. And again, we do that at four out of the six corps.

In the other two corps, and I'll explain more about this later, we do what we call expeditionary advising. So expeditionary advising is sending out teams that are based here in Kabul to connect with those two corps and conducted advising on-site for a period of days or a period of weeks.

I want to stress that Resolute Support has been in existence for just a little over a year. Resolute Support began on the first of January 2015, so the key I want to -- the key point I want to emphasize is that the mission for us here has fundamentally changed compared to ISAF.

Under ISAF, we were helping to support the Afghan security forces, helping to build their capacity, and we were also fighting. We're no longer doing the fighting and the Afghan security forces have that all on their own. So, looking back at 2015, this was their first year when they had the fight all on their own.

Our assessment of their performance in 2015 is that they had mixed results. Whenever they conducted deliberate planned operations, they actually did fairly well. One of the important things is that they applied and learned lessons from one operation to the next. They got better. And the things that they struggled with in one operation, we saw improvements on in the next one, particularly in their ability to integrate their air and integrate their artillery.

Now, where they had trouble and they didn't do so well was in response to crisis situations. When they responded to a crisis, it took longer. It required more time to get forces in position, and then it required more time to stabilize the situation. They did get somewhat better at crisis response, but that remains one of their weaknesses and one of the areas they're going to have to continue to focus on into 2016.

The Taliban throughout 2015 did make some temporary gains. But what they were not able to do is they were not able to hold ground and they were not able to govern. And in almost every case, the Afghan security forces were able to retake the ground that the Taliban took, whether it was a roadway or a district center or key terrain. The Afghan security forces bounced back and retook that.

And perhaps the best example of that is the fact that the Afghan security forces retook the city of Kunduz, which is a city of over 300,000 people, in just seven days.

Now, this was a crisis response. It was a response to an unplanned incident, but they did fairly well. And seven days to secure a city that size is a -- is not insignificant.

We have traditionally referred to the fighting season here in Afghanistan as starting in May and ending roughly in the November timeframe when the snow in the mountain passes makes it difficult to travel back and forth across the mountains.

That's really an outdated term and it's outdated for a couple of reasons. One is that the -- the fighting really takes place year-round. And I'll point to the fact that the Afghan security forces didn't wait to the start of the declared fighting season to begin their operations. They started security operations in January of this year and have continued that throughout the year.

So they've been very busy and their operational tempo, as we refer to it, has been very high, much higher than it had been in the past, which is why they are going to need some time to reset and refit their force.

So into the winter campaign, things have definitely slowed down in the north, in the west, in the east, somewhat here in Kabul. They continue to be busy in the south. I would characterize the security situation for the Afghans in the north and the east in the west as manageable.

Clearly, there is still some challenges in the east, particularly in Nangarhar. The south, most particularly in Helmand, remains contested, but we expected that. We expected for the Taliban to hold on to the what has been traditionally the heart of their support base.

Most of that activity has been in central Helmand. Central Helmand has been a contested area for many years and it remains contested. We expected a tough fight there and it has been a tough fight, and we expect that tough fight to continue through the winter.

We know that control of Helmand remains a goal of the Taliban. It's also the main effort of the Afghan security forces, and not surprisingly, it's the main effort of our forces, the coalition forces that are doing the train, advise and assist for the Afghan forces in Helmand.

One of the major efforts that will occur over the winter is already started is the rebuild of the Afghan national army's 215th Corp. The 215th Corp has responsibility for Helmand. It is not one of the crops where we have a permanent TAA, but it's one of the areas where we do the expeditionary advising and that is ongoing as we speak.

There really are three things that the Afghan forces are focusing on over the winter in Helmand. They're focusing on rebuilding the core in terms of manning, equipping, resetting their equipment, putting it through maintenance as needed and then training, retraining those soldiers once they've been -- once the units have been reformed and ensure they're ready to get into the fight.

This is made more challenging because they're still conducting operations there. The Afghan security forces have moved forces from elsewhere in Afghanistan to assist. They're having some success with that. But I want to stress that it's going to take time for the rebuild of the 215th Corps. We will assist as much as we can under the train, advise and assist authorities.

Looking at 2016, there are four fundamental things that the Afghan security forces have got to do to be effective.

The first is to implement a force readiness cycle, and the concept here is a three-phase cycle where the forces will go through a training phase where they're getting ready for combat operations, and then an operational phase where they're in the fight, and then they'll come out of that and they're go into a reset phase.

During the reset phase, soldiers will take leave, equipment will go into maintenance and the unit gets itself reset so that it can begin the cycle again, starting with that training phase.

The second is to reduce checkpoints. President Ghani has made this a major point of emphasis. They've got too many checkpoints and they've got too many of their forces strung out on checkpoints. There's an old military saying that “if you defend everywhere, you defend nowhere,” and this is particularly true in Afghanistan.

If they have too many forces on checkpoints, then what they don't have is the ability to maneuver. What they don't have is the ability to respond to security crises when they arise. So what we need them to do is to reduce the number of checkpoints and move to strong points, which are well defended and which will provide them enough available combat power so that they can respond when needed.

They've also got to make some tough leadership choices. They've got some leaders that need to be replaced, they've got some leaders that are corrupt that need to go. The Afghan security forces are making these changes. They've made a lot of them in 2015. Those new leaders are going to need some time to get established, and they're going to need some time to form their units, but that's ongoing.

I can tell you that in the 215th Corps, the corps commander has been switched out, two of the brigade commanders in the 215th Corps have been changed out, as have several members, key members, of the staff. These are important changes, and those new leaders are still going through the process of establishing themselves. We're very, very impressed with the new 215th Corps Commander, General Moeen. He leads from the front, he is personally invested in turning around 215th Corps, and we are confident that if he has the support from the rest of the leaders in that formation, that he'll be able to do that.

Recruiting is another area of emphasis. Currently, the Afghan national army has a shortfall of about 25,000 overall. They've established the goal of closing that gap over the next six months, and that'll be a significant -- a significant accomplishment, but something that's got to be done so that they have the combat power to continue into 2016.

Afghan security forces continue to build capacity. In fact, just last week, they had their first four A-29 Super Tucano close air support aircraft that arrived. This -- these are the first four of 20 that they'll have in the Afghan air force. This will be a significant increase in their capability to provide their own close air support. Those aircraft should start going into service roughly in the April timeframe.

They've also, for the first time, employed the MD-530 helicopter. The MD-530 helicopter is a light reconnaissance helicopter similar to the U.S. Little Bird helicopter that's used for reconnaissance. It's also armed with either machine guns or rockets. They've had increasing success in employing the MD-530s. First employment was this summer, and they've used it with great effect over the fall.

Afghan special forces are increasingly capable. Our assessment is that they're the best in the region and they continue to improve. A couple of notable achievements here recently. In the last 45 days, Afghan security forces conducted two raids at night using only Afghan forces and Afghan aircraft, and on two separate occasions raided Taliban prisons freeing Afghan security forces that had been held captive there, in some cases, for over two years.

In both cases, these operations were executed flawlessly, under the cover of darkness. There were absolutely no casualties taken by the Afghans, no prisoners harmed and no damage to equipment. That doesn't happen by accident, and that represents what the Afghan special forces are capable of.

On the conventional side, they've had some success as well, and one recent example I'll point to is a combined operation that occurred just last week in (inaudible) up in Takhar Province.

To put this in perspective, Takhar Province is in the north. It's just to the east of Kunduz province and it's on the border of Tajikistan. So during this operation, a combined Afghan element consisting of conventional forces, Afghan security forces, and Afghan air force infiltrated at night and maneuvered such that they got behind the Taliban -- behind Taliban lines in Darkar district. The net result of the operation was that 48 Taliban surrendered. And the population was very supportive of the Afghan security forces. That particular district had been under control for two months.

I bring this example up because it is something that perhaps you don't hear much of, but again, an example of the capability that not just the special forces, but the conventional forces have.

And with that, I'd be happy to take your questions.

CAPT. DAVIS: Thank you, general.

We'll start with Bob Burns.

Q: Hello, general. Bob Burns from AP.

A couple of questions related to Helmand. Could you tell us with regard to Marjah, which we heard about recently with that battle there that -- where the American was killed and others were wounded? Have not heard much since then. What -- what's the situation in Marjah, that area? Is it under Taliban control?

And the second question is your -- your reference to the 215th Corps needing to be rebuilt, retrained and so forth. Did that corps collapse on the battlefield? Or has it -- what happened to that corps?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, Bob, let me answer the second part of your question first, on 215th Corps, and then I'll go to Marjah and Helmand.

So, the problems in 215th Corps were several. They -- they had problems with equipment maintenance. They had problems with units that had been attrited. They had problems with poor leadership. What we have found when units have an issue with attrition, it typically is traced back to poor leadership.

And there are three fundamental things that have to happen in a unit. Soldiers have got to be paid on time. They've got to be fed on time. And they've got to be given leave when they deserve leave. And if one of those things or a combination of those things doesn't happen, then the soldiers will leave. Now, sometimes they'll come back, but that obviously is no way to run an organization.

And so the fix for that is not sophisticated. It's pretty simple. It's having good leaders. It's having good leaders that take care of their soldiers. And so, that's why it is so important that we get the right leadership in 215th Corps.

So, the leaders have been replaced. They're now going through the process of fully manning those units. And once they're manned, they'll go through a retraining period. But again, leadership is the key there.

With regard to Marjah and Helmand, central Helmand remains a contested area. It's been a contested area for several years and it remains so. And that includes central Helmand and the Marjah district as well. I'd like to provide a little bit of context for Helmand and what's been happening there since about the October timeframe.

So, in October, the Taliban began an offensive in Helmand primarily focused on the central part of the province, aimed at securing their support bases there in Helmand. In early November, the Afghan security forces began a counter-offensive to counter the Taliban's gains. In the early part of January, a U.S. special forces team was conducting train, advise and assist of an Afghan special forces element in the Marjah area as part of that counter-offensive.

I want to take just a minute to explain the train, advise and assist role that our forces have there.

So, when we're conducting train, advise and assist, on the conventional side we do that at the corps level. And as I mentioned earlier, that's with the expeditionary advising that's going on in Helmand. With the Afghan special forces, that's conducted down to the tactical level. And so that's what was going on in this case.

I would compare the train, advise and assist role to perhaps a coach and a football team. And so the analogy would be that the coach is there for every practice, he's there for every game, but he's not on the field. He's not throwing the football, he's not making tackles, but he's there and he's coaching, and that's what our forces do in the train, advise and assist role, they coach. And that's what was going on here.

So when our forces are conducting train, advise and assist, they'll assist with planning, they'll assist in integrating intelligence support, they'll assist in integrating air support. They can assist with helping with transportation, but increasingly, the Afghans have been providing the transportation on their own.

What they do though is they separate from the Afghan element prior to that Afghan element going on the objective, and so the U.S. train, advise assist forces are not on the objective. They'll separate, they'll go to an overwatch position or they'll go to a command and control location where they can monitor the execution of the operation.

Q: So is Marjah in control of Taliban and -- and what percentage of Helmand would you say the Taliban controls today?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Bob, to provide -- to provide context on that, Afghanistan has 404 districts in total. We assess that right now, the Taliban have control of only nine of those districts. We assess they have influence in about 17 others. The area in and around Marjah remains a contested area, and that's as far as I'll go there.

I do want to stress on the operations that occurred on the fifth and sixth, at no time were the U.S. forces there are in danger of being overrun. In fact, the total number of combined U.S. and Afghan forces on the ground during that incident numbered over 100, and that's before the quick reaction force arrived.

The Afghan forces on the ground were Afghan commandos, very capable force, and at no time were the U.S. forces there denied air support. In fact, we conducted 12 airstrikes between the 5th and the 6th of January in and around Marjah in support of those forces.

CAPT. DAVIS: Now we’ll hear from Mik(off-mic.)

Q: General, Jim Miklaszewski with NBC.

Can you explain then, if the U.S. forces in their train, advise and assist role when they are forward deployed with the SOF forces, how that American soldier then was killed? Was he actually -- it sounds as if he was actually involved in the fighting as opposed to overwatch.

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, Jim, you good to hear from you. I'll stress that Afghanistan remains a dangerous place. He was in his train, advise and assist role and he was in a situation where they received fire from an enemy element. They returned fire and in the -- the -- the action that ensued, one enemy soldier -- one American soldier was killed, four Afghan soldiers were wounded.

Q: Then were the Americans and the Afghans ambushed, taken by surprise before there could be that separation between the Afghan forces and American forces which are supposed to be in overwatch? Just what happened?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Jim, I'm not going to get into the details of the -- the tactics of that particular situation. We did have an American soldier killed. The -- that incident is under investigation, as is any incident that involves a casualty, we investigate it fully. And so we're going to let that investigation play out.

I will stress that the force that was there -- the American special forces team is designed to operate independently, which it was doing, but combined with the Afghans, they did have sufficient combat power on hand for the threat that they faced. And they had sufficient air power available to them throughout the operation.

Q: Thank you.

I wanted to ask about Kunduz and there are news reports out there this week that close to punishing some of the special forces that were involved in the airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital.

GEN. SHOFFNER: Sure. Happy to take your question. Who am I speaking with?

Q: Sorry. Tara Copp from --

CAPT. DAVIS: Tara Copp from Stars and Stripes.

GEN. SHOFFNER: Hi, Tara. No, thanks for that question.

So with regard to the investigation on Kunduz, I'd refer you to the U.S. Central Command for anything having to do with the investigation. I can tell you that the adjudication on the individuals that are involved in that is still ongoing. And so I won't comment on any particular individual that is involved.

I want to stress that all these are American citizens. They are afforded due process and we need to respect that as the -- those actions are adjudicated.

Q: (inaudible) -- question on Marjah.

In the initial readouts, it wasn't clear to me. Were the Afghan special forces part of this 215th Corps? Or were they separate from 215th Corps?

GEN. SHOFFNER: So, the Afghan special forces were supporting 215th Corps. As I mentioned, the 215th Corps in early November began a counter-offensive to counter the Taliban's gains in Helmand. And so the Afghan special forces units were working with 215th Corps as an integral part of that effort against the Taliban.

Q: (inaudible) -- 215th Corps or a subordinate unit -- (inaudible)?

GEN. SHOFFNER: I can tell you that they were integrated with the 215th Corps and working in concert with them.

CAPT. DAVIS: Nancy Youssef from the Daily Beast.

Q: General, I wanted to ask you about the December 21st incident in which six airmen were killed outside of Bagram. Can you please help us understand the circumstances which led to their deaths? What was the mission that they were out on when they were killed? And also, how was it that a motorcycle, or suicide bomber on a motorcycle was able to get that close to these airmen? And finally, have there been any adjustments in terms of how U.S. personnel lead outside the wire in light of what happened on the 21st?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, those U.S. airmen that were tragically killed that day were conducting a routine patrol in and around what we call the Bagram general defensive area. And one of our missions is to patrol the general defensive area. We do that for multiple reasons. We do that to maintain contact with the local population and also as a deterrent to threats to the force.

And that's as far as I'll go. That incident as well is under investigation. I will stress that we constantly, whenever anything occurs that involves casualties, we're always looking for lessons learned and applying those lessons learned. Our operations here involve continual assessment.

And so, yes, we have made changes in terms of the way we conduct operations. And we want to learn everything we possibly can from any patrol, especially those where we have an incident, to make sure that we're learning the right lessons and providing the proper force protection and safety for our forces for the future.

Q: What I'm having a hard time understanding is why would special investigators be on a routine patrol, as you describe it?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, I won't go any -- any further into the types of units that were conducting that patrol, other than to say it was a routine patrol that had been done before.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Joe Tabes from al-Hurra.

Q: General Shoffner, I want to go back to the firefight in -- in Marjah and Helmand. A lot of questions still not answered. Why it took more than three attempts to get the soldiers out? Do you see any increase in the Taliban's capabilities in -- in Helmand?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, let me -- let me talk a little bit about the medevac. So the decision to bring in a medevac is the -- the decision by the commander on the ground, and the commander will generally talk to his chain of command and make the decision about when is the right time to bring in the medevac. I can tell you that every operation here in Afghanistan involving coalition forces is planned so -- such that a medevac can respond and meet the golden hour standard. That's one hour from the time the medevac is called to the time it arrives at a medical care facility.

That was the case here, and as I said, it's the case every time we conduct an operation. My first tour here in Afghanistan was in 2003. That was the case in 2003. We never conducted an operation without medevac within a one hour response time, and -- and oftentimes, that was the driving factor on -- on operations that we conducted.

I also want to stress that the special forces team involved, like any special forces team, had two highly qualified medics. Those medics are trained to provide life-saving care. They did provide care to the wounded in this case and the wounded did receive adequate medical care.

Q: Just to follow up, did you see any increase in Taliban's capabilities?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, the Taliban have -- have definitely stretched the Afghan security forces in this past year. They have conducted operations in unexpected areas, particularly in the north. That stretched the Afghan security forces. The Taliban's goal remains the south, particularly the Helmand region. We think their activities in the north are an attempt to draw Afghan security forces away from Helmand, which remains their goal.

They have fought pretty hard in the -- in Helmand this winter to maintain control of that area. Again, we expected that and that -- that remains a tough contested area.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Thomas Watkins from Agence France Press.

Q: Hi -- hi, general. Thanks for doing this.

I actually have two questions. First question, the 25,000 short fall figure -- I was wondering if you could perhaps elaborate a bit and give us some context around that, how -- that's a shortfall of how many? How -- how do the Afghans plan on filling the -- recruiting those -- those vacancies and so on?

And then secondly, we get very frequent updates here from SIGAR, the Special Inspector General Office, and I believe there's going to be some testimony this week. There are frequent allegations of lack of DOD oversight and squandering of millions -- billions of dollars in the rebuilding effort there -- a lot of it -- around the security forces. I was wondering if you have any general comments about -- about that stuff as well.

GEN. SHOFFNER: On recruiting Afghan security forces in total, it -- the problem is primarily in the Afghan national Army. The Afghan national police are doing better at recruiting and the -- and the national police a little bit different than the army in terms of how they operate.

In the Army, it's a national army. One of the challenges is that parts of the country aren't well represented in the army, and that's an issue that they got to -- they've got to address. They -- as I said, it's a six-month campaign to meet that shortfall.

Part of their challenge in manning is not just recruiting, but it's addressing the attrition issue. So the way to look at this is the holistic issue of properly manning the force, so if they can address the attrition issue, that's getting the leadership to make sure that soldiers are paid, that they're fed and that they get their proper leave and they're treated properly, that'll go a long way to retaining the soldiers that they have.

One of the things that they're struggling with is what we would call re-enlisting, and that is getting soldiers to re-contract. Once they fix their challenges in re-contracting, that'll help significantly as well. So it's going to take a combined effort with the -- fixing the re-contracting, addressing attrition and recruiting as many as they can before the fighting season in 2016 starts to demand more and more of their forces.

Q: Okay, thank you. And then on the second point about these -- about SIGAR.

GEN. SHOFFNER: I'm sorry. Let me -- let me get to the second -- I'm sorry, go ahead.

Q: I apologize. I was talking over you. I was just reminding you of the second point about SIGAR.

GEN. SHOFFNER: So I won't get into the details on the testimony that's going to occur this next week. I'll leave that to the Department of Defense. But I will say that we welcome any constructive efforts to help in the transparency and accountability of the way that U.S. tax dollars are spent here in Afghanistan. We put a lot of effort into this. We have the Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan which is charged with oversight, providing that transparency and accountability in the way in which funds are spent and the U.S. resources are applied here in Afghanistan.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next two, Richard Sisk from military.com.

Q: Sir, on the situation in Helmand, what is the situation at Lashkar Gah? Is that still under threat? Has there been any success in opening up the road again between Marjah and Lashkar Gah?

And could you address the situation up further north in the San Gin? Is that one of the districts that you mentioned there are nine which are under Taliban control?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, the area you're referring to is Central Helmand. Lashkar Gah, obviously you is a -- is a major city there and it remains a goal of the Taliban and it remains an objective of the Afghan security forces to maintain security in Lashkar Gah.

One of the highways that the Afghan security forces have focused on is Highway 611 that runs up to the Kajaki Dam, a strategically important route. Checkpoints have been an issue on Highway 611. They have had some success in collapsing those checkpoints and ensuring that they have enough forces to maneuver, and Afghan security forces are working hard to ensure that they have freedom of maneuver on Highway 611 which is -- it goes to Kajaki Dam, which is a -- has a power plant that supplies part of the power in the region. It has obvious import to the southern part of the country.

The areas that you mentioned -- San Gin, Marjah -- remain contested. We expect them to remain contested throughout the winter.

Q: Sir, are there any districts in Helmand which are under control of the Taliban?

GEN. SHOFFNER: There are. Hard to specify exactly how many at any given time. But there are some that -- where the Taliban have control. But one of the things that we see, though, is that the Afghan security forces have been successful in retaking areas that the Taliban have taken. So the Taliban gains have been temporary. The Afghan security forces have retaken checkpoints. They've retaken district centers.

The area does remain contested and we expect the Taliban to contest the areas that you've mentioned in the key population centers throughout central Helmand.

Q: Sir, again, where are the districts that are under the control of the Taliban in Helmand province?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Again, those districts that we're talking about, things change rapidly. And I'll leave it that they are contested. It's difficult to pin down an exact number that are under Taliban control at any given time. They do go back and forth. But Afghan security forces remain committed to countering the gains made the Taliban there in central Helmand.

CAPT. DAVIS: Cami McCormick from CBS News Radio.

Q: General, thank you for doing this. You mentioned the Afghans were moving forces to assist in the fight in Helmand, and also that they were stretched then. I'm wondering how long they can continue to do that and how stretched they are? How many -- how can they move forces out of the east, for example? You mentioned Nangarhar, which I would also like you to expand on if you could what's going on there.

GEN. SHOFFNER: Yes, so I won't get into the details in terms of where they've pulled forces from. The fight is ongoing and I think we all appreciate the fact that for operational reasons, there are some things we won't talk about. But they have repositioned forces as they can. They're also working to establish a reserve capacity, reserve units that can be employed that don't require units to be pulled off of another region.

What I'd just to put Helmand in context, you know, Afghanistan is a country of a little over 33 million people. In Helmand province, there are about 890,000. So Helmand population-wise constitutes less than three percent of the population in the entire country. It is an important area. It's important to President Ghani. It's the Afghan security forces' main effort. And clearly, it is part of the Taliban's goal to have control of the Helmand area. But I do think it's important to keep it in perspective with regard to the security situation around the country.

In Nangarhar, the Afghan security forces have had significant success against Daesh. There was an attack -- the first high-profile attack we've seen in Jalalabad city last week. But back to Daesh, what we've seen with Daesh in Afghanistan, we currently characterize them as operationally emergent. I'll define that as not having the ability to orchestrate or control operations in more than one part of the country at a time. We're not seeing Daesh elements in Iraq or Syria orchestrating events here in Afghanistan.

What we are seeing is Daesh attempting to establish a base of operations in Nangarhar province. They've largely been pushed back to the southern parts of Nangarhar province. That area is very, very rugged, it's very mountainous, it's on the border with Pakistan, and that's where most of the Daesh in Nangarhar currently is.

We have seen Daesh in other parts of the country. What we've seen in other parts of the country are small pockets that mainly consists of low-level recruiting and propaganda; we haven't seen it organized. We're not seeing a significant amount of money coming into Afghanistan to support Daesh.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Lucas Tomlinson with Fox News.

Q: Yes, thank you, general. Can you update us on the status of the wounded special forces soldier and all of the Americans fighting in the Marjah battle? And also, can you tell us when does the mission turn from a train, advise and assist to combat?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Yeah. So on the status of the wounded soldiers, I don't have that in front of me, but I'd be happy to provide to you what we have subsequently.

On that situation there in Helmand, I just want to be clear about when it ended. So as I mentioned, we conducted 12 airstrikes over the period of time from the 5th to the 6th. The situation there ended when all of the Taliban in that area had either been killed or they'd fled the area. So that's what resulted.

With regard to the latter part of your question, we expect that all of our soldiers here to have a combat mindset. The mission remains train, advise and assist. We do have the ability to protect ourselves, our soldiers have adequate force protection on the ground, they have adequate firepower on the ground and they have adequate air support.

Q: (off-mic.) reluctance on your part to call this combat. When these soldiers come home after being in a gunfight that lasted many hours, do you expect them to not tell people that they were involved in combat or do you expect them say I didn't see combat but I saw train, advise and assist?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, I'm not going to speak for the soldiers involved. The soldiers will do what they need to do to protect themselves and protect their comrades, and that's what they did in this case.

CAPT. DAVIS: I'm not sure if he heard you. Do you want to try one more --

Q: Just one more time, general. Did that involve combat?

GEN. SHOFFNER: I'm sorry, could you repeat that question?

Q: You said that the soldiers did everything to protect themselves, and my question, sir, is did that involve combat?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well again, we ensure that our soldiers have the assets the need to protect themselves, the force protection, the firepower and the authorities and the rules of engagement to protect themselves, and that's what they did in this case.

CAPT. DAVIS: Andrew Tilghman from Military Times.

Q: General, on the 215th Corps, you mentioned some problems with corruption. Could you be a little bit more specific about what the issues have been? Was there misuse of government money, was there any kind of colluding with the -- with the Taliban in the region? What were the problems that you've been seeing there?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, I'm not going to single out any individual, but I will say that on -- with some of the key leaders in the brigade, we had some individuals who were corrupt, that related to issues in soldiers not being cared for properly, equipment not being maintained, ammunition and supplies not getting where it needed to be and was part of what contributed to the effectiveness issues in the -- in the unit that needed to be addressed over this winter period.

Q: General, what you're describing sounds more like incompetence, but you're using the word corruption. What's the corrupt element of -- of what you're describing?

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, if somebody's using supplies that are there for personal gain or in any way benefiting from what's happening in terms of the way soldiers and units are resupplied, that would be corruption.

And another area where we see corruption is in the pay, and one of the efforts we have underway is to help reform the -- what is called the Afghan pay and performance systems. So this is a way in which Afghan soldiers are paid. Currently, most soldiers in the army are paid based on manual rolls. That's handwritten rolls and the paymasters in the units are given cash to make the payments.

And so really, there's two issues there. The first is, if you don't have proper accountability, you don't know who you have and you can't ensure that you're paying the soldiers that are actually there. And the second, if you're handing cash to the paymasters, that leads itself to corruption.

So there are two efforts underway. One is to automate the database, and so we're going from those manual rolls to a computer-based automated system that is auditable, that is transparent so it can be accessed from anywhere, and it's also accurate. Once you have that automated database, then electronic payments can be made to those soldiers using electronic funds transfer.

This is taking a little bit longer than it would in the West. Not every soldier has a bank account and there isn't an automatic teller machine, an ATM, at every corner. There is a program underway in the Afghan national police called Mobile Money, which is a check to bank pilot that has been fairly successful. And ultimately, we're going to try to go to that for the Afghan national army.

You know, President Ghani has said that the lasting legacy the coalition forces will be here is not fighting the war, it'll be the systems and the processes that are left behind, it'll be the institutional reforms that we help the Afghan security forces achieve.

CAPT. DAVIS: We're about out of time here. A couple of real quick follow-ups first from Tara, then Bob Burns.

Q: Thanks, general. One more question on the 215th. Were the failures within the 215th Corps and some of the problems that you've cited, was that part of what led to the losses at Marjah? Was it failures within this corps to adequately patrol Helmand or to have enough boots on the ground or to have motivated soldiers that, you know, created a pocket that ultimately led to the challenges and the losses we saw on the 5th and the 6th?

GEN. SHOFFNER: So the central Helmand region has been contested for a while, as has Marjah. It was a contested area when coalition forces fought there in 2006 and in 2010. It remains a contested area now that the Afghan security forces have the lead.

The problems that I mentioned didn't particularly cause the situation that occurred on the 5th and 6th. In fact, the counteroffensive that the Afghan security forces began in November had been fairly effective, and up to that point, the security forces, both the conventional and special operations forces, had had fairly significant success.

And I'll point to the two prison raids that occurred in Helmand, one in a place called Now Zad and another in a place called Shurakay. The first of those at the beginning of December, the second was on 1st of January, so just five days prior to the raid.

I think those prison raids are significant. Not only do they demonstrate the capability of the Afghan special security forces, but it also sends a message to the Afghan soldiers and security forces themselves. And the message is if you get hurt, our country will come and get you; the Afghans will come and get you.

And that's exactly what they demonstrated.

CAPT. DAVIS: Finally, to Bob Burns.

Q: General, a follow-up to an earlier exchange we had with you about districts under Taliban control. You yourself said that out of the 404, there are nine districts under Taliban control. So it seems that you could answer the question about how many of those are in Helmand and which ones are they.

GEN. SHOFFNER: Well, again, Helmand remains harder to qualify. It is a contested area. And I'll go as far as that.

Jeff, at this point, I'd like to just offer a couple of comments to close.

CAPT. DAVIS: Yes, go ahead.

GEN. SHOFFNER: So, one of the -- yeah, one of the things that's going on right now are the quadrilateral peace talks. This is an important development. The second round of those is occurring this week here in Kabul. They are quadrilateral. They involve the Afghan government, the Pakistani government. The Chinese and the U.S. are attending, but aren't participating. The U.S. and Chinese are there as observers.

This is an important step. In fact, yesterday there were some fairly significant advances there. They did agree on a framework for future peace talks with the Taliban. And they committed to putting that into writing. That's something that they have not had before. They've also agreed to meet again on the sixth of February in Islamabad.

So again, encouraging signs there. We support -- we continue to support an Afghan-led and an Afghan-owned peace process as the surest path to peace here in Afghanistan. And we support any violent extremist organization laying down their weapons and joining the peace process led by the Afghan government.

With regard to the international community, I want to highlight the NATO foreign ministerial meeting. That's the meeting of the NATO foreign ministers that occurred back in December of 2015. The results of this meeting were that 47 nations pledged their long-term support to Afghanistan. We weren't sure what the results of that meeting would be, but 47 nations is actually more than we have in the coalition now.

Looking forward to 2016, we expect those commitments to be solidified in the Warsaw Conference, which will be another significant NATO meeting that will occur in July 2016 in Warsaw, Poland. And then later in 2016, in October, will be another conference in Brussels which will focus on development assistance.

So between the Warsaw Conference that focuses on commitment for security assistance, and the Brussels Conference in October that focuses on development assistance, two key sessions which should solidify the long-term commitment not just the U.S., but by the international community, which as I said earlier, 47 strong right now.

So the long-term approach here, President Ghani has said, is going to take a partnership -- a partnership with the international community. It's also going to take a regional approach. President Ghani has said repeatedly that he's fighting insurgents from other nations in the region in Afghanistan. And it's going to take a regional approach to combat that.

Some of the terrorist insurgent groups operate on both sides of the border. So clearly, this cannot be an Afghan-only solution to this problem. We're very encouraged by the commitment by the international community. We're encouraged by the fact that it is focused on long-term development, not just of the security situation, but for development assistance as well. We see security as the foundation for everything else and that development assistance that I mentioned will be equally as important going into 2016 and beyond.

Thanks very much for your time and appreciate every one of you joining us this morning.

CAPT. DAVIS: Thank you, general, for your time.

Thanks, everybody.