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Taliban offensive awaits British troops
Six years after the declaration of victory in Afghanistan the British government announced the dispatch of 1,400 extra troops yesterday in readiness for an escalation of the violence sweeping the country.
The sending of the troops, along with aircraft, armoured vehicles and artillery, will raise the total force there to 7,700 making it bigger than the one now deployed in Iraq.
And, while the numbers in Iraq are being reduced to about 5,000, with British troops withdrawing to just one base, their role in Afghanistan will expand from their focus in Helmand to five other provinces in the lawless south and east of the country. Britain will also extend its command from Helmand to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, which saw prolonged combat between Nato and insurgent fighters, in which 1,500 insurgents were reportedly killed.
The Defence Secretary, Des Browne, admitted in the Commons that the Army could not maintain the increased commitment in Afghanistan - which is scheduled to last to 2009 - indefinitely. "Presently this situation is manageable, but I have conceded here at the despatch box that we cannot sustain this in the long term without doing damage to the core of our troops," he said.
The unravelling security situation was further highlighted by complaints to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf from US Vice-President Dick Cheney, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper over his apparent failure to stop the Taliban and al-Qa'ida using bases in his country to launch attacks in Afghanistan.
The unusually blunt message was delivered during visits by Mrs Beckett and Mr Cheney to Pakistan during which the Vice-President also warned Mr Musharraf that he risked losing the hundreds of millions of dollars he received in US aid every year.
Anxiety over attacks from across the border has heightened over reports that Taliban fighters are using their bases, especially in the Quetta area, to prepare for a spring offensive.
A statement from President Musharraf's office said Mr Cheney "expressed serious US concerns on the intelligence being picked up of an impending Taliban and al-Qa'ida 'spring offensive' against allied forces in Afghanistan."
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2308418.ece
And, while the numbers in Iraq are being reduced to about 5,000, with British troops withdrawing to just one base, their role in Afghanistan will expand from their focus in Helmand to five other provinces in the lawless south and east of the country. Britain will also extend its command from Helmand to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, which saw prolonged combat between Nato and insurgent fighters, in which 1,500 insurgents were reportedly killed.
The Defence Secretary, Des Browne, admitted in the Commons that the Army could not maintain the increased commitment in Afghanistan - which is scheduled to last to 2009 - indefinitely. "Presently this situation is manageable, but I have conceded here at the despatch box that we cannot sustain this in the long term without doing damage to the core of our troops," he said.
The unravelling security situation was further highlighted by complaints to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf from US Vice-President Dick Cheney, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper over his apparent failure to stop the Taliban and al-Qa'ida using bases in his country to launch attacks in Afghanistan.
The unusually blunt message was delivered during visits by Mrs Beckett and Mr Cheney to Pakistan during which the Vice-President also warned Mr Musharraf that he risked losing the hundreds of millions of dollars he received in US aid every year.
Anxiety over attacks from across the border has heightened over reports that Taliban fighters are using their bases, especially in the Quetta area, to prepare for a spring offensive.
A statement from President Musharraf's office said Mr Cheney "expressed serious US concerns on the intelligence being picked up of an impending Taliban and al-Qa'ida 'spring offensive' against allied forces in Afghanistan."
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2308418.ece
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Last year when John Reid, the then Defence Secretary, unveiled a major troop deployment to Afghanistan, he suggested they might return "without firing a shot". His successor Des Browne, announcing yesterday that 1,400 extra troops are to be sent to Helmand province, revealed no such complacency.
The change in tone is testament to the extent to which Afghanistan has slipped backwards in the past year. The number of roadside bombings has doubled. Suicide bombings increased fivefold. Last year was the most violent since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001. The Nato command in the country seems to be in a state of utter disarray. There is a lack of clarity over the British mission in the south. The role of our troops is officially to provide security and help reconstruction efforts. But last year they were engaged in the toughest battles the Army has experienced since the Korean War.
There is also growing acrimony over the division of labour among Nato countries, after France and Germany refused to increase their troop levels, or send their personnel to the more dangerous parts of the country. Some have suggested this mission could even destroy Nato as an effective military force.
The situation is further confused by the growing influence of Pakistan. The US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, were both in Islamabad yesterday to request that President Musharraf step up his efforts to prevent al-Qai'da regrouping on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. In public, the US and Britain cite Pakistan as a friend to their mission in Afghanistan. But US officials, in private, blame an agreement signed by President Musharraf last September with tribal militants for allowing the Taliban freedom of movement across the border. The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has also accused elements of Pakistan's security services of aiding the Taliban.
The complicity of the Pakistani state with these religious fanatics actually goes even deeper. The country's radical madrassas are responsible for feeding the vicious Islamist ideology that sustains the Taliban. Indeed, many of the Taliban's leaders actually studied in Pakistan (not to mention some of the UK's home-grown terrorists of recent years). Meanwhile, President Musharraf, who came to power in a coup, has little democratic legitimacy. The alliance he has formed with the US is resented by the vast majority of Pakistanis. This is an ally as unstable as it is conceivable to imagine.
Only one thing seems certain in this morass of conflicting agendas: sending 1,400 more British troops to Helmand will not make much difference to Afghanistan's prospects of a stable future.
The root of Afghanistan's problems is the fact that the promises made by the international community at the 2001 Bonn conference have been broken. Resources for reconstruction failed to materialise, as international attention switched to Iraq. Too few troops were sent to supervise rebuilding and disarmament. Too little effort was expended on building up the judiciary and the police.
The result is that President Karzai's central government is dangerously weak and the grip of the warlords in the country is as strong as ever. Many Afghans say their lives have changed little in the past six years. It is this atmosphere of disappointment and resentment that the Taliban have exploited. They may not be greatly liked by the general population, but at least, unlike Nato, they are not now threatening to destroy the opium crop, the one lucrative export of most Afghan farmers.
More soldiers cannot make up for six years of neglect. The unpalatable truth is that in Afghanistan, the Western mission may already have been lost.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2308413.ece