September 15, 2002	Sunday	Rajab 7, 1423

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 14: Calls by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a larger international force in Afghanistan went unheeded at a high-level meeting of donor and neighbouring states on Friday.

Recent terrorist attacks showed that insecurity was the foremost challenge to Afghanistan, Annan told foreign ministers and senior officials of 21 states meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

“The ultimate guarantee of security will be the creation of an effective army and national police force,” he said but “an expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would also make a crucial difference.”

Karzai, who survived an assassination attempt last week in Kandahar, also reiterated a call for the nearly 5,000-strong ISAF to be expanded from Kabul to other parts of the country.

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, he stressed that only a small number of troops was needed in three or four major cities, mainly as a “psychological” move to assure the people of the world’s commitment to Afghan security.

But a communique issued after the high-level meeting merely acknowledged ISAF’s role in “greatly improving security conditions in and around Kabul,” without promising any extra troops.

The meeting brought together all six of Afghanistan’s neighbours, the United States, six European Union members and a representative of the European Commission, Russia, Japan, Norway, India, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Karzai represented Afghanistan.

The meeting did, however, endorse Karzai’s call at the UN General Assembly for donors to be more forthcoming with 4.5 billion dollars they pleged at a conference held in Tokyo in January.

Welcoming the pledges, the communique called for “the rapid disbursement of those funds.”

The high-level meeting “welcomed the initiatives of the Afghan government on reconstruction and reiterated the need to strengthen the capacity of Afghans to determine their own destiny,” the communique said.

The massive return of refugees since the fall of the Taliban regime late last year “has put an enormous strain on Afghanistan’s resources,” it said.

The meeting appealed for further assistance from donors to help reintegrate the refugees.

TWO US PILOTS CHARGED: The US military has formally charged two pilots with manslaughter over the friendly fire killings of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, officials said on Friday.

Canada welcomed the decision.

“It demonstrates that they take it very seriously, and about that I’m very pleased,” Canadian Defense Minister John McCallum told reporters in Ottawa. “I think those are very, very serious charges.”

Four counts of manslaughter and eight counts of assault were filed against US Air Force majors Harry Schmidt and William Umbach.

They were pilots of two F-16 jets from which a 225-kilo laser-guided bomb on Canadian ground forces engaged in a live-fire exercise near Kandahar on April 17.

Schmidt is also charged with failing to exercise appropriate flight discipline and not complying with rules of engagement, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Umbach also faces charges that “as flight commander, he negligently failed to exercise appropriate flight command and control and to ensure compliance with the rules of engagement.”

A US military commission of inquiry said that Schmidt was flying low and saw lights like fireworks which he though could be surface-to-air fire and requested permission to return fire.—AFP