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Sunday | Safar 21, 1423 |
Establishment of ‘durable state’ vital: Commander’s views on Afghan mission
BAGRAM AIR BASE (Afghanistan), May 4: Winning the war in Afghanistan is not just about eliminating Taliban and Al Qaeda guerillas but must include the establishment of a durable state, the commander of Britain’s Royal Marines said on Saturday.
Major General Rob Fry, commandant general of the Royal Marines and commander of the British coalition warships in the Gulf, said the US-led coalition’s mission in Afghanistan was to create a viable and enduring state.
“I think what you can do is look at a situation where Afghanistan has been given a considerable amount of help, has become a functioning society in its own right and we have created the preconditions which then allow the Afghans to look after their own business,” Fry told reporters.
“Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that Afghanistan will be completely devoid of terrorism. Bombs went off outside the Real Madrid stadium (in Spain) the other day,” Fry said referring to a guerrilla attack in the Spanish capital on Wednesday.
Fry was speaking at Bagram air base, the US-led coalition’s headquarters, north of the capital Kabul.
Fry was not in operational command of a Royal Marine sweep through soaring mountains in southeast Afghanistan that got into full swing on Friday.
But he spoke to reporters about the broader aims of a war that some fear may evolve into a guerrilla conflict less easy to defeat with conventional forces.
The last major clash took place in March with hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the Shahi-i-Kot valley of eastern Afghanistan.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda appear to have dispersed into small groups since then.
BUYING TIME: With each day that passes without contact between the US-led military coalition and any remaining rebels, the Western forces in Afghanistan were “buying time all the time” for the creation of a durable, enduring and coherent Afghan society, Fry said.
“I think you can defeat a guerrilla either by finding him and killing him or by so transforming the political circumstances in which he garners his support so that he no longer receives that support,” Fry said.
“Both of these things can be happening concurrently,” he said, insisting that the Afghan war should not be viewed merely in military terms.
Fry said the process towards establishing a viable and enduring state had begun.
Among the steps were humanitarian aid, the creation of a national Afghan army owing allegiance to the state and not regional warlords, and the Loya Jirga, or grand tribal council meeting in June, which will either endorse the interim administration of Hamid Karzai or select a new government.
In that light, it was senseless to view the duration of the Afghan war in terms of time, Fry said.
The “effect” was much more important, he added.
Fry added that this meant the Afghan war could be declared a success even if Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is not found or killed.
“I’m not saying we will call this decisive in terms of the global war upon terrorism,” he said. “But I see no reason whatsoever why if we are successful in transforming a society we should not recognise that that has taken place.”
REFUGEES LEAVING IRAN: The United Nations refugee agency said it had begun repatriating Afghan refugees from Iran’s southern border crossing on Saturday after an earlier return programme was