January 27, 2007	Saturday	Muharram 07, 1428

KABUL: A surge in US aid to insurgency-hit Afghanistan will not bear fruit if the focus remains on military action against Taliban fighters and not on reconstruction, analysts said Friday.

Washington says it will commit more troops and $10.6 billion to Afghanistan over two years, but only two billion will go towards rebuilding while the rest is earmarked for the Afghan security forces.

The Taliban gave a stark warning of the difficulties facing the Afghan government and international forces when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a US-funded aid office in southern Afghanistan on Friday.

“The former Soviet Union also spent billions of dollars on modern weapons and military facilities but they failed to defeat the resistance with hardship and weapons,” Afghan analyst Waheed Mujda told AFP.

“This US funding is more of a hurried political move than a deeply studied answer to the needs of this country.” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she would present the funding plan to fellow Nato ministers in Brussels on Friday as part of a revamped war strategy aimed at defeating resurgent Islamist fighters.

She said $8.6 billion of the aid would go to expanding, training and equipping security forces loyal to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and two billion for reconstruction and the fight against narcotics.

The insurgency, which Afghan and some western officials say is being backed by Pakistani intelligence, claimed the lives of 4,000 people including many rebels in 2006, the worst since US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001.

Officials say there were nearly 140 suicide attacks, up from 27 in 2005.

Afghan defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi welcomed the “significant” US boost, adding: “The only solution to Afghanistan’s security is the building and equipping of the Afghan national army and police.” The nascent Afghan army which is fighting Taliban guerillas alongside 33,000 Nato-led forces and over 8,000 US-led coalition troops last week received new weapons after repeated complaints of poor military facilities.

But analysts said that merely pouring money into a country where corruption is rife and strong government is lacking is simply asking for trouble.

“I have serious doubts the Afghan government would be able to use the funding properly. There is a big question mark,” said Talat Masood, an analyst and retired army general of Pakistan.

Analyst Mujda said that to counter the Taliban’s efforts to win over or intimidate the populace, the international strategy must focus more on people’s lives.

Decades of war, Taliban rule and drought have paralysed the country’s economy – and promises by the Nato-led force in Afghanistan to lead reconstruction have proved largely empty.

“What is important is economic reforms to make people confident in the future, to create the hope for life, to boost trust,” Mujda said.

Afghanistan’s new army has been hit by massive levels of desertion and allegations of corruption, and Mujda said that new weapons would not help “when their families are poor, when there is no hope and trust for the future”. “Today, Americans are scared to see the same problems of Iraq in Afghanistan and they have made a hurried decision to prevent it,” he said.Pakistani political analyst Mohammed Afzal Niazi said the failure of earlier reconstruction efforts was the reason that the Taliban had been able to stage a comeback in the first place.

“The sort of operation the Americans are conducting will not be able to gain the support of the local population. They should leave Afghans to decide their future and work as an honest broker,” Niazi said.—AFP