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NATO Allies Pledge to Step Up Afghan Efforts    [

    US Warns of Bloody Taliban Spring Fightback
    Reuters

    Friday 26 January 2007

    Kabul - The United States, stepping up its commitment to Afghanistan and pushing European allies to follow suit, on Friday warned the country faced a bloody and dangerous spring offensive from an emboldened and strengthened Taliban.

    "I think we will face a strong offensive and will have a difficult and dangerous and bloody spring," U.S. assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia Richard Boucher told the BBC, calling the guerillas virulent and tough.

    "But we are also better set up to deal with it."

    Last year was the bloodiest since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. More than 4,000 people, a quarter of them civilians, were killed and more than 160 foreign soldiers.

    A tough winter, with snow blocking mountain passes, has contributed to the annual lull in fighting, but analysts warn the Taliban, bolstered by drug money and safe havens in Pakistan, will fight back strongly after the thaw in a few months.

    "The Taliban phenomenon is largely a southern phenomenon. Now, it's very virulent. It's tough. But we're dealing with it," Boucher said.

    "They're actually under pressure - they're under pressure from all sides. Not only from NATO and the Afghan army, but also to some extent from Pakistan as well."

    Washington this week extended tours of duty for some of its troops in Afghanistan, effectively boosting troop levels by 2,500 for the next few months, and is asking Congress for an extra $10.6 billion for security and reconstruction.

    At a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels called by the United States, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday pushed European nations to do more in the embattled country.

 

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    NATO Allies Pledge to Step Up Afghan Efforts
    Agence France-Presse

    Friday 26 January 2007

    NATO has pledged a robust response to an expected offensive early this year from Taliban-led insurgents in Afghanistan, as the United States offered to boost aid and possibly provide extra troops.

    "The message has been clear that the international community intends to keep up the initiative in Afghanistan," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after talks between alliance foreign ministers in Brussels.

    "That means more reconstruction, and we have heard more nations stepping up to the plate as far as their activities are concerned in the field of reconstruction and development," he said.

    On the need for more troops to confront the Taliban, Scheffer said: "Force generation will no doubt be discussed in Seville," Spain between defence ministers February 8-9.

    NATO spokesman James Appathurai said: "Allies are going to step up their civilian, military and economic efforts, with increased pledges for funding... and more forces on the ground."

    He said they welcomed an offer from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to provide 10.6 billion dollars in aid over the next two years and keep more than 3,000 troops already in Afghanistan there for an extra four months.

    A senior US official said the new aid would in part finance an increase in size of the Afghan army and police forces.

    "Many allies around the table, I can't go into specifics, discussed increases that they are planning for this year," Appathurai said during a lull in the talks.

    But the upbeat assessment belied developments in Afghanistan, the world's biggest opium producer and whose border regions with Pakistan are a haven for drug runners and extremists like the Al-Qaeda network.

    Around 4,000 people were killed in the insurgency last year - many of them rebels - and US officials say suicide attacks have more than quadrupled since 2005.

    The Taliban has surprised NATO troops with its readiness to stand and fight and assemble rebels in large numbers, as well as carry out the hit-and-run attacks that wear down forces and civilians alike.

    In Kabul, an Afghan analyst told AFP that the US package was not the answer.

    "The former Soviet Union also spent billions of dollars on modern weapons and military facilities but they failed to defeat the resistance with hardship and weapons," said analyst Waheed Mujda.

    "This US funding is more of a hurried political move than a deeply studied answer to the needs of this country," he said.

    The US offer is partly aimed at easing European concerns that Washington is so focused on Iraq that it might leave them to shoulder the burden in Afghanistan.

    But the United States also wants NATO to go after the Taliban, which does not sit well with some of the 26 allies which see the alliance's role as primarily as stability provider.

    NATO leads some 33,000 troops from 37 nations under the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is trying to spread the influence of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government to outlying regions.

    But the Taliban, ousted by a US-led coalition in 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden, has waged a surprisingly virulent insurgency against the military alliance in the south and east of the country. It is expected to launch a major new offensive early this year.

    If reconstruction does not go ahead quickly, ordinary Afghans, disenchanted by a lack of economic progress, could turn back to the fundamentalist militia, Western governments have warned.

    "What we have to do is get a comprehensive approach that means we can tackle all those difficult problems including corruption and the opium trade," British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said as she arrived for the talks.

    Scheffer said the allies also agreed that Pakistan, where Al-Qaeda is believed to have a base, must stop fighters crossing in and out of Afghanistan.

    "It is very important to find a solution to the border problem and it needs an investment from all the parties on all sides."

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