KABUL—U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in the Afghan capital on Friday in an unannounced visit, amid upheaval in the senior ranks of American and Afghan officials waging the 17-year war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.
Mr. Mattis, accompanied by Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was to hold meetings with senior Afghan officials and with Army Gen. Austin Miller, the new commander of American-led international forces here, as well as hold a town-hall style forum with troops.
Peace talks with the Taliban, the country’s largest insurgency group, were expected to be high on the agenda of discussions between Mr. Mattis and Afghan officials.
In July, U.S. diplomats and Taliban representatives met in the Gulf state of Qatar to discuss a possible framework for talks aimed at ending the war. However, a series of devastating Taliban attacks last month and the insurgency’s refusal to reciprocate Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s call for a three-month cease-fire have slowed momentum for further discussions.
Still, while the war against the Taliban and Islamic State’s local branch has expanded since President Trump announced his rejuvenated Afghanistan strategy little more than a year ago, Mr. Mattis made clear this week that the prospect of talks with the Taliban hasn’t evaporated.
“Right now, we have more indications that reconciliation is no longer just a shimmer out there, no longer just a mirage,” the defense secretary told reporters this week. “It now has some framework. There’s some open lines of communication.”
Underscoring the Trump administration’s determination to jump-start negotiations with the Taliban while continuing to pressure it on the battlefield, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday appointed a seasoned American diplomat, Zalmay Khalilzad, to oversee the incipient peace process. Mr. Pompeo didn’t indicate Mr. Khalilzad’s job title, saying only that he would “be the State Department’s lead person” for peace talks.
The appointment comes at a moment of turnover, if not turmoil, in the nucleus of those U.S. and Afghan officials who have been guiding the war effort.
Gen. Miller assumed command of the military coalition on Sunday, having vowed during his confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in June to never, unlike his predecessors, speak of “turning a corner” in Afghanistan “unless there is one.”
As for the Afghan government, veteran national security adviser Hanif Atmar, a longtime confidant of Mr. Ghani, resigned abruptly on Aug. 25, citing “serious differences over policies and approaches at the top level of government.”
Mr. Ghani then appeared to fire his ministers of defense and interior, as well as the head of the country’s intelligence service, only to reverse the dismissals the following day. Mr. Atmar has been replaced by 35-year-old Hamdullah Mohib, most recently Afghanistan’s ambassador to Washington.
Mr. Mattis arrived in Kabul from New Delhi, where he, along with Mr. Pompeo, signed an agreement with Indian officials on Thursday for deeper military and intelligence cooperation.
Mr. Mattis’s visit coincides with renewed questions about his job security, following the release of excerpts of a book by journalist Bob Woodward about the Trump White House. Mr. Woodward portrays Mr. Mattis telling Mr. Trump that the U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula is intended to “prevent World War III” and later describing the president’s understanding of global affairs as that of “a fifth or sixth grader.” Mr. Mattis has denied making those comments.
Mr. Trump’s well-documented impatience with U.S. policy on Afghanistan is echoed in Mr. Woodward’s account, too. The president upbraided his generals and advisers at a National Security Council meeting in July 2017, complaining that the U.S. was losing the war, according to the author.
The soldiers on the ground “could do a much better job. I don’t know what the hell we’re doing,” Mr. Woodward quotes the president as saying. “How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?” Mr. Trump asked.
The president didn’t give an interview for the book. When he called Mr. Woodward about it, the author had already completed his manuscript.
Friday’s visit by Mr. Mattis to Kabul was at least his second since Mr. Trump unveiled his new Afghanistan strategy.
Last September, fighters belonging to Islamic State’s local affiliate launched a mortar attack on Kabul’s international airport shortly after the arrival of the airplane carrying the defense secretary.
They fired dozens of mortars on the tarmac in a well-coordinated assault before the safe house near the airport from which they launched the attack was destroyed by government security forces. Neither Mr. Mattis nor anyone in his entourage were harmed.
Write to Craig Nelson at craig.nelson@wsj.com
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