NATO Allies Reluctant to Send More Troops to Afghanistan
September 13, 2006
Leading European NATO members are likely to tell military commanders on Wednesday that they cannot provide further troops to help gain the upper hand over Taliban fighters, who are showing new strength in the southern part of the conflict-ridden country and involved in daily clashes with British, Dutch and Canadian troops.
Main European governments are arguing that their forces are already stretched thin through deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Balkans.
At present 20,000 NATO troops are deployed as part of the UN's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) throughout Afghanistan. France and Germany have troops in Kabul and northern Afghanistan, but not on the front lines, though the French have indicated that they may be prepared to help out in the south.
"Only a limited number of nations are prepared to go south," said on ISAF official. "The absence of extra troops means that the impact on success is considerable."
Troop strength needed
The alliance supreme allied commander, US General James Jones, has called for reinforcements of up to 2,500 troops to counter increased Taliban attacks. He also issued a plea for more helicopters and other aircraft to aid the ISAF in Afghanistan.
"More troops would bring a decisive end to the battle against the Taliban," he said.
Mark Laity, a spokesman for NATO in Kabul told the Canadian broadcaster CBC that although NATO countries have acknowledged the need for more troops, they have yet to produce them.
"What you are seeing down in the south is a challenge. If we don't get the troops, we are going to carry on, but the extra pressure (on existing troops) means things are not progressing as fast as we would like," he said.
According to human rights groups, at least 25 Afghan civilians have been killed and 7,000 families displaced in Kandahar. Elsewhere, police said that a Colombian aid worker and two Afghan colleagues working for a French
aid organization had been kidnapped.
Germany not expected to offer more support
Germany, Italy, Spain and Turkey, however are not expected to offer additional support.
On Tuesday, the German Defense Ministry said it would not send troops to the south, nothing that the current deployment of 2,900 soldiers in northern Afghanistan already put it close to a limit of 3,000 set by parliament.
Spain, France and Italy already have contigents in western Afghanistan and in the capital Kabul. They say they are stretched after recent troop commitments in Lebanon. Turkey has also ruled out sending any reinforcements.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the BBC News that some member countries are carrying more of their fair share of the burden in Afghanistan than others, and called on the 26-nation alliance to show more solidarity.
Rice calls on NATO allies to stay the course
American officials have pleaded for its NATO allies to stay the course, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issuing an urgent call to not abandon Afghanistan as it struggles to build its fragile Western-style democracy.
"If you allow a failed state in that strategic location, you will pay for it," she warned during a trip to Nova Scotia, where she expressed her gratitude for Canada's deployment of 2,300 troops.
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who was in Brussels yesterday addressing the European Parliament, said that the Taliban now presented the biggest security threat in the Central Asian region.
But one senior NATO official told London's Daily Telegraph that pleas for additional troops would probably fall on deaf ears.
"At the moment there is no indication of any substantive offers. The signs are that the conference will not produce what is needed," he said.