November 3, 2001	Saturday	Shaba’an 16, 1422

BERLIN, Nov 2: Germany’s former military chief of staff warned on Friday that if American ground forces are deployed in Afghanistan they will suffer the same fate as Soviet troops.

Hartmut Bagger, chief of the general staff for Germany’s armed forces from 1996 to 1999, said in a Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper interview that he hoped Washington would be smart enough not to send normal ground forces into Afghanistan.

“The last to show us where that leads were the Soviets. I hope the Americans won’t walk into the same trap,” he said.

Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in 1979 and left in 1989 after the loss of 15,000 troops in a protracted guerrilla war.

Bagger said he was “irritated” by the US Air Force’s current carpet bombing campaign.

“I have a bad feeling that the American military operation is getting out of hand. They no longer have any strategic targets and are using methods which kill more and more civilians,” Bagger said.

Despite German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s offer of military assistance to the US war effort, Bagger said Germany’s armed forces had little to offer given their lack of the modern helicopters and jet fighters needed for the Afghan theatre of operations.

“In principle the Bundeswehr (Germany’s armed forces) is no longer capable of taking part in joint operations with the Americans and the British,” Bagger said.—dpa