NATO: More Troops for Afghanistan?
28 November NY Times editorial - Slouching Toward Riga
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When NATO leaders gather in Latvia this week, there will undoubtedly be a lot of grand talk about how the cold-war alliance has managed to elude irrelevance, bringing in new members, dispatching humanitarian aid and deploying peacekeepers beyond Europe’s borders.
But the real issue before the annual summit meeting is that NATO is failing its most significant post-Soviet test: stabilizing Afghanistan. Violence is spiraling as the Taliban and Al Qaeda reassert their power. The economy is addicted to opium production. The pro-Western government in Kabul looks increasingly powerless and irrelevant.
Unless NATO’s members commit to sending in more troops and more resources, Afghanistan could go the way of Iraq. There may not be many more chances after this week’s meeting.
The current 32,000-member NATO force is too small. Some provinces — including those along the border with Pakistan, where the Taliban have their sanctuaries — have little or no allied presence...
Trouble on the Canadian political front for the Afghan mission
From CBC.ca
Quote:
Duceppe threatens to topple government over Afghan mission
Last Updated: Monday, December 11, 2006 | 7:34 PM ET
CBC News
Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe threatened Monday to try to topple the Harper government over the mission in Afghanistan unless the current mandate is changed.
Duceppe warned he might table a no-confidence motion if the mission isn't "rapidly and profoundly" altered, with more resources put into reconstruction instead of fighting.
....
Senlis Council Report: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE HEARTS AND MINDS CAMPAIGN IN SOUTHERN AFG
From CBC.ca
Quote:
Troops bear brunt of 'misguided' Afghan aid policies: report
Last Updated: Thursday, December 14, 2006 | 2:30 PM ET
CBC News
International agencies, including the Canadian International Development Agency, have failed to tackle the food emergency in southern Afghanistan, and NATO soldiers in the region are paying the price, a new report says.
The paper, released Thursday by the Senlis Council, an international think tank, says "misguided" policies by agencies such as CIDA and the British Department for International Development have left the local population hungry and angry towards the international community.
More...
The full report (4MB) is available at http://www.senliscouncil.net/documents/HM_report_full
Marc
NATO Launches Major Operation in Afghanistan
6 March Washington Post - NATO Launches Major Operation in Afghanistan by Griff Witte.
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NATO and Afghan forces launched what commanders described as a major operation in a key province of southern
Afghanistan Tuesday morning, part of a bid to win back territory that has become a haven for insurgents.
The operation, the international force's largest to date in the country, was centered in the northern part of the
Helmand province, where Afghan government authorities have very little control and insurgents have been able to move with relative impunity. The province's governor said 700 al Qaeda fighters recently moved into the region, and were planning to continue the wave of suicide bombings and other attacks that have besieged Afghanistan for the past year and a half.
Both sides have said this is likely to be a bloody spring for the country, and Tuesday's operation seemed to mark a significant escalation. NATO forces said the operation began at 5 a.m. and ultimately would involve 4,500 NATO troops from the U.S., Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, plus 1,000 Afghan soldiers...
Australia and Canada Update Thread
The Australian - Diggers Get Afghan Boost.
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Australian special forces will go back on the offensive against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan in an effort to regain the upper hand in Oruzgan province.
The return of the special forces comes at a crucial time, with Taliban insurgents threatening to retake control of key areas in the south, including inaccessible parts of Oruzgan.
John Howard said yesterday the 300-strong special operations task group - part of a plan to double Australia's military commitment in the country - would be sent to Oruzgan for at least two years...
The Australian - Pressure on Howard to do More.
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Australia's defence chiefs are already reconciled to a long-term Australian military presence in Afghanistan.
Yesterday's announcement of a return of special forces to Afghanistan confirms that that country remains at the centre of Australia's military contribution to the global jihadist war.
The SAS and the commandos are essential to ensuring that our engineers and trade specialists can go about their civic rebuilding tasks with the support of localAfghans. The ground forces are sustained by headquarters, intelligence and logistics staff, as well as vital air support, bringing the total size of the force to at least 1000.
The experience of the past few months has shown that without aggressive, long-range patrolling and intelligence gathering by Australian special forces, the threat posed by Taliban insurgents in Oruzgan province will soon rebound. Tight rules of engagement for a number of NATO countries, including The Netherlands, inhibit their combat forces from taking on the Taliban in offensive operations.
John Howard conceded yesterday that there was a long way to go in Afghanistan, saying the war could not be won without "renewed and increased effort" on the part of coalition forces...
Globe and Mail - Death of Six Canadians Shatters Afghan Calm.
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Canada suffered its worst day in battle since the Korean War as six soldiers were killed yesterday and two injured by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
The powerful strike on their LAV III armoured vehicle marked a stunning end to a relatively peaceful winter enjoyed by the Canadian troops, who had not suffered a death by enemy action in more than four months.
The attack also signified the first major salvo from the Taliban in response to Operation Achilles, as thousands of NATO troops roll into Helmand province to confront insurgents openly defying government rule...
Globe and Mail - Two Soldiers Die in Wave of Taliban Bombings.
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Two more Canadian soldiers died in a wave of Taliban bombings yesterday, making this the military's worst week on the battlefield in half a century.
Three days after six Canadian soldiers died in a roadside explosion on Easter Sunday, a helicopter thundered into Kandahar Air Field last night and medical crews hurried onto the floodlit tarmac to unload a seriously injured soldier on a stretcher, while another staggered into the military hospital with his arms around two comrades. A second helicopter set down moments later, carrying the two bodies.
By the end of the day, three explosions had injured three Canadian soldiers and as many as 10 civilians, and raised the total of Canada's war dead in Afghanistan to 53 soldiers and one diplomat...
Not just People this time
I just returned from Kabul performing an assessment visit for potential EOD/EDD vacancies. Hmmm, tempting offer. Where did the vacancies come from :rolleyes:
The recent attacks also killed 7 Afgan deminers, injured two and killed two Mine Detection Dogs :mad:
The last time deminers were attacked in 2005, the UN suspended demining activities.
1 Attachment(s)
For Marc and the Canadians
For Marc and the Canadians. Canadian wounded at Vimy Ridge...
Digging in All Over Again
14 April The Australian - Digging in All Over Again by Patrick Walters.
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Australia is being slowly yet inexorably being drawn into a novel 21st-century version of the "great game" in Afghanistan as our military prepares for its most sustained fighting since Vietnam.
The upgraded Afghanistan mission promises to be long and hazardous, and Australia's defence chiefs know there is no guarantee of victory.
Our overall troop commitment is much likelier to rise than fall in the next two years as the battle intensifies to stabilise Afghanistan. But, unlike Australia's two most recent wars, in Vietnam and Iraq, the war in Afghanistan is a full bipartisan commitment from the Government and the ALP.
John Howard this week warned that Australia's national interests were involved in Afghanistan. He said the war could not be won without "renewed and increased effort" by the US and its allies. Describing Afghanistan as being at a crucial stage in its history, the Prime Minister warned of a deteriorating environment in southern Afghanistan and the threat of a resurgent Taliban and al-Qa'ida.
"But while I am very conscious of the history of Afghanistan, you can't see what is occurring there just as part of the historical continuity. There is another element and a very real element to the sort of world in which we now live," he said.
For Howard the new player in the near 200-year-old great game is al-Qa'ida and the fanatical Taliban. The risk for Australia is that Afghanistan will once again become a safe haven for terrorists as it was in the late 1990s when it was the global headquarters for al-Qa'ida and Osama bin Laden...
14 April The Australian - Rules of War by Greg Sheridan.
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Prime Minister John Howard wrote to Pakistan's military dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, in February. The tone of the letter was emollient and friendly, but it bore a heavy message. Howard likes Musharraf. They talk about cricket and the Commonwealth. There is a kind of Sam Browne belt quality to their relationship.
Howard admires the way Musharraf turned Pakistan around after the 9/11 al-Qa'ida terror attacks and made it into an ally of the West in the war on terror.
But if that Howard-Musharraf relationship was worth anything, it needed to be put to use now. This week Howard announced the effective doubling of Australia's military commitment to Afghanistan. This will reach 1000 Diggers by next year. It is one of the most dangerous and militarily important troop commitments Australia has made in decades...
14 April The Australian - PM Asks Pakistan to Curb Taliban by Greg Sheridan and Bruce Loudon.
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John Howard has written to Pakistan's military dictator, imploring him to do more to stop the flow of Taliban forces into southern Afghanistan in an effort to reduce the threat to Australian troops being sent to the region.
As Australia was preparing to double its troop commitment in Afghanistan, the Prime Minister told Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf in a personal letter sent in February, that the Taliban flow from Pakistan threatened the lives of Australian troops sent to Oruzgan province.
But General Musharraf yesterday lashed out at Western critics of his attitude to the Taliban and al-Qa'ida, bluntly threatening to quit the war on terror unless criticism of him abated.
US President George W.Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other Western leaders have put pressure on General Musharraf to crack down on terrorist activities along the border between his country and Afghanistan.
Western military analysts believe Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency is continuing some level of co-operation with the Taliban - a claim General Musharraf attacked this week...
Deadly 'IED Cell' Aims to Disrupt Canadian Efforts
14 April Globe and Mail - Deadly 'IED Cell' Aims to Disrupt Canadian Efforts by Grame Smith.
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Canadians and their allies are hunting for a group of Taliban bombers who have infiltrated the farmland west of Kandahar from neighbouring Helmand province, military officials confirmed yesterday.
But the insurgents' strike with an improvised explosive device in Zhari district this week, which killed two Canadians, does not mean the Taliban's spring offensive has arrived, said Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Walker, the battle group commander. Nor does the bombing mean that the security situation in Zhari has deteriorated, he added.
“We were just in the process of starting operations to target that particular cell when we had this most recent IED strike,” Lt.-Col. Walker said.
“It's my understanding that this IED cell is still there, and it certainly will be a focus of both the Afghan national army and police, and our collective efforts over the next number of days, to try get better definition on it, so that we can collectively work together to try to detain, capture, or persuade them to leave the area.”...
13 April Globe and Mail - Rising Toll Prompts Purchase of Tanks by Alan Freeman.
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Insisting that tanks can save the lives of Canadian soldiers deployed in its increasingly dangerous Afghan mission, the government announced yesterday it would spend $650-million to acquire up to 100 second-hand tanks from the Netherlands and lease 20 more from Germany.
The German-designed Leopard 2 tanks will replace Canada's 30-year-old Leopard 1 tanks deployed to Afghanistan last fall, which are not air-conditioned and could leave troops sweltering in 60-degree temperatures in the Afghan summer.
“We feel that it's best for our troops that we acquire stronger, heavily armoured main tanks that increase protection,” said Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who made the announcement at the end of a meeting of defence ministers from the eight countries participating in the NATO-led force in southern Afghanistan.
The acquisition of 100 tanks for a mission that now uses only 17 indicates that the armed forces have persuaded the government that Canada will need a robust tank force in the future...
Afghan Offensive to Test NATO Credibility
18 April Washington Times - Afghan Offensive to Test NATO Credibility by David Sands.
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The United States and its NATO allies are making progress in Afghanistan but face a critical test of the alliance's credibility from an expected spring offensive from the Islamist insurgency, Dutch Ambassador to the United States Christiaan Mark Johan Kroner said in an interview yesterday.
The U.S. and Dutch armies are among the few NATO countries carrying out the bulk of the military operations against resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan's restive south and east.
The 2,100-member Dutch force has taken command of the volatile southern sector from Canada, but several NATO powers have placed restrictions -- known as "caveats" -- on the deployment of their forces to Afghanistan's more dangerous regions.
The war is a "critical test of NATO's credibility," Mr. Kroner said in a luncheon with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
"If NATO does not succeed there, it will be a disaster -- not just for Afghanistan and the region but for NATO itself," the veteran Dutch diplomat said. "It would certainly be a blow to the credibility of the West to deal with a crisis."...