Fighting jeopardises Nato’s long-term aims in Afghanistan
By Mark John
BRUSSELS: Nato troops have been sucked into bloody combat with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan that risks turning local opinion against them and undermining their ultimate goal of fostering reconstruction, analysts say.
When it pushed south this month, the 26-nation alliance aimed to maintain a clear distinction between Nato forces, which would go there to foster reconstruction, and US special forces, out to smash insurgent bases.
But the involvement of British and Canadian troops in some of the heaviest violence since the US-led invasion in 2001 shows that logic was flawed, and has put the relatively benign image of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the country in jeopardy.
“It’s hard to convince people whose house you’ve just bombed that you are on their side,” said Colonel Christopher Langton, head of defence analysis at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
The UN Security Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution extending the mandate of the Nato force for an additional year, until Oct. 12, 2007.
The council acted after Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta this week submitted a letter saying the force had been “crucial in improving security.”
In adopting the text, the 15-nation UN body recognized the need to further strengthen ISAF and urged all governments to offer it money, troops, equipment and other resources.
Nato estimates it has killed more than 500 Taliban since it launched the Operation Medusa offensive just over a week ago in the southern province of Kandahar, heartland of the insurgency. The Taliban dismiss the figure as propaganda.
Some 20 Nato soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the operation, including 14 British military personnel who died when their aircraft crashed. Nato and Afghan officials say there have also been civilian casualties in the fighting.
It was never supposed to be like this when the alliance, under intense US pressure, agreed to push south in August from the relative quiet of the north, west and capital Kabul.
Then, the message was that ISAF would pull the rug from under the Taliban by winning “hearts and minds” by helping build new roads, schools and other infrastructure.
Instead, the violence has put any real reconstruction on hold and ISAF’s news releases are mostly battle reports.
“They have fallen into the trap of daily reports about the number of Taliban killed. But more important is how many people you persuade not to be fighters in the first place,” said Sean Kay, a security specialist at Ohio Wesleyan University.
The IISS’s Langton said efforts by Afghan authorities to eradicate poppy crops — key to the livelihood of many in the south — would also hit Nato’s image with locals.
The international Senlis thinktank published evidence last week that rising poverty was fuelling Taliban support.
The violence has also exposed the thin deployment of Nato troops in the south. It has just 6,000 men in an area the size of Britain, a number alliance chiefs originally said was sufficient only if they had the support of ordinary Afghans.
Now they say they underestimated Taliban resistance and need up to 2,500 more troops and extra attack helicopters and transport aircraft. But analysts say that too is insufficient.
Where reinforcements should come from is not clear. All major Nato nations have existing commitments in multinational missions in Iraq, Kosovo, Congo and now Lebanon.
One idea is for Germany, which has 2,700 troops in the north, to send some south. But this looks awkward given Berlin’s insistence that the peacekeeping it signed up to do should be kept strictly separate from high-end warfare.
Tim Williams, head of the European Security Program at London-based Royal United Services Institute, said he was confident troop offers would emerge because Nato simply could not afford to lose in Afghanistan.
Nato chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer “has said this mission is critical to the future of the alliance,” Williams said. “The troops that can do this kind of job are out there.”—Reuters
