Breaking: President Obama to Launch Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy Review, Announces Next Offensive

By Kelly Chernenkoff and Major Garrett

The White House announced Friday that President Obama will launch a review of his administration's strategy on fighting the Taliban in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region this December. A senior administration official describes it as a "comprehensive strategic review" which will pose the question "is this strategy taking hold?"

The review will compliment what the Pakistani government is already doing to fight the Taliban in the Northwest Frontier Provinces and in the Swat Valley.

The official described progress in the overall effort to combat extremists as halting, "It's not going to be easy, there's not going to be straight-line progress. It's going to be two steps forward, one step backward."

The US military has been engaged in an intense push to take back the city of Marja, Afghanistan from extremists. The site of the next offensive is going to be Khandahar, Afghanistan, which the official calls "the capital city of the Taliban movement."

The Khandahar City offensive will happen "later this year. It's a goal for 2010," says the official.