KABUL -- U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have ordered steps to overhaul intelligence gathering and analysis in response to deficiencies uncovered during a lengthy White House strategy review last year.

The overhaul announced Monday will broaden the scope of intelligence gathering from hunting down extremists to gathering information about local attitudes, concerns, people and leaders as part of an effort to win over the Afghan population.

The changes were ordered by Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, director of intelligence for the military command in Afghanistan, and were detailed in a paper published Monday by the Center for a New American Security, a military think tank.

They became public as military officials announced the first U.S. combat deaths of the new year. Four U.S. troops were killed by a roadside bomb a day earlier in Afghanistan's violent south. A British soldier was killed in a separate explosion.

The military did not reveal the location of the U.S. deaths, but most Americans in the south are based in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, where the Taliban movement is the strongest. Those provinces are also a center of Afghanistan's drug trade, which has close links to the insurgency.

To read full Los Angeles Times story — Go Here Now.