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NATO to take over Afghanistan forces
HAIRY
Member Posts: 23,606
NATO to take over Afghanistan forces
Correspondents in Portoroz, Slovenia
September 30, 2006
NATO agreed yesterday to take command of peacekeeping across all of insurgency-hit Afghanistan next month, after the US pledged to transfer an extra 12,000 troops to its force.
Pentagon officials said the transfer of its troops in eastern Afghanistan would entail the biggest deployment of US forces under foreign command since World War II.
The agreement, endorsed at a meeting of alliance defence ministers in Slovenia, would have the American troops come under NATO control within Afghanistan's International Security Assistance Force.
Afghanistan is experiencing the worst violence since the Islamist Taliban were ousted in 2001.
Militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, have tripled in some areas despite a peace agreement, the US military said yesterday.
NATO's expansion of troop numbers in the east of the country comes as it struggles to find troops to hold off a dogged Taliban-led insurgency in the volatile south.
"I am grateful that the United States has decided to bring its forces under ISAF," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in Slovenia. "It should not be used as an argument that we can now rest on our laurels," he added, urging other allies to supply extra troops for the more dangerous south.
The accord will boost ISAF's numbers to more than 30,000 troops -- almost half of them US forces -- from 37 nations.
It would also permit NATO's commanders to move US soldiers from the east to the Taliban's southern heartland, where British, Dutch, Canadian and Australian troops have been locked in battle with Taliban-led fighters.
"What the commander will do is, he will make judgements as to how he wants those forces arrayed and to the extent that facts on the ground call for X, Y or Z," US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
But Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Scheffer urged NATO allies to do more, amid a reluctance to supply about 2000 reinforcements in the south in response to a demand this month by supreme commander US General James Jones.
"If you are in an alliance based on solidarity, you have to deliver," Mr Scheffer said.
Poland will speed up its deployment of about 1000 personnel and is expected to provide many of the combat troops needed in the south. NATO sources said Romania, Canada, Denmark and the Czech Republic also made offers.
ISAF has been on a mission since 2003 to spread the influence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's weak central Government to remote and outlying regions by providing security and fostering reconstruction. It first moved into the north and west of the country, setting up civilian-military reconstruction teams to try to improve infrastructure and the economy while providing security. Stage three had NATO take command in July, mainly through British, Dutch and Canadian troops, in the Taliban's southern heartland.
The final phase involves transferring command of US troops in the Operation Enduring Freedom coalition to ISAF and could be completed very quickly.
But US officers in the east say attacks on their troops have increased two- to three-fold recently, and, according to one diplomat, General Jones told ministers the threat in the west had "gone from medium to high".
The Taliban, ousted by the US-led coalition in 2001 for harbouring al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden, has been backed by allies, including drug-runners and fighters for local warlords.
Correspondents in Portoroz, Slovenia
September 30, 2006
NATO agreed yesterday to take command of peacekeeping across all of insurgency-hit Afghanistan next month, after the US pledged to transfer an extra 12,000 troops to its force.
Pentagon officials said the transfer of its troops in eastern Afghanistan would entail the biggest deployment of US forces under foreign command since World War II.
The agreement, endorsed at a meeting of alliance defence ministers in Slovenia, would have the American troops come under NATO control within Afghanistan's International Security Assistance Force.
Afghanistan is experiencing the worst violence since the Islamist Taliban were ousted in 2001.
Militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, have tripled in some areas despite a peace agreement, the US military said yesterday.
NATO's expansion of troop numbers in the east of the country comes as it struggles to find troops to hold off a dogged Taliban-led insurgency in the volatile south.
"I am grateful that the United States has decided to bring its forces under ISAF," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in Slovenia. "It should not be used as an argument that we can now rest on our laurels," he added, urging other allies to supply extra troops for the more dangerous south.
The accord will boost ISAF's numbers to more than 30,000 troops -- almost half of them US forces -- from 37 nations.
It would also permit NATO's commanders to move US soldiers from the east to the Taliban's southern heartland, where British, Dutch, Canadian and Australian troops have been locked in battle with Taliban-led fighters.
"What the commander will do is, he will make judgements as to how he wants those forces arrayed and to the extent that facts on the ground call for X, Y or Z," US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
But Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Scheffer urged NATO allies to do more, amid a reluctance to supply about 2000 reinforcements in the south in response to a demand this month by supreme commander US General James Jones.
"If you are in an alliance based on solidarity, you have to deliver," Mr Scheffer said.
Poland will speed up its deployment of about 1000 personnel and is expected to provide many of the combat troops needed in the south. NATO sources said Romania, Canada, Denmark and the Czech Republic also made offers.
ISAF has been on a mission since 2003 to spread the influence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's weak central Government to remote and outlying regions by providing security and fostering reconstruction. It first moved into the north and west of the country, setting up civilian-military reconstruction teams to try to improve infrastructure and the economy while providing security. Stage three had NATO take command in July, mainly through British, Dutch and Canadian troops, in the Taliban's southern heartland.
The final phase involves transferring command of US troops in the Operation Enduring Freedom coalition to ISAF and could be completed very quickly.
But US officers in the east say attacks on their troops have increased two- to three-fold recently, and, according to one diplomat, General Jones told ministers the threat in the west had "gone from medium to high".
The Taliban, ousted by the US-led coalition in 2001 for harbouring al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden, has been backed by allies, including drug-runners and fighters for local warlords.