December 22, 2008	Monday	Zilhaj 23, 1429

KABUL, Dec 21: Afghanistan on Sunday welcomed a US pledge to send up to 30,000 extra troops by mid-2009, but the Taliban warned Washington that its forces would be ‘cruelly defeated’ as the Soviets were in the 1980s.

The statements came a day after the top US military officer said that tens of thousands of new troops could be sent to Afghanistan by next summer to help Kabul combat a Taliban-led resistance that has gained pace in recent years.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, put the total deployment at between 20,000 and 30,000 troops. If the Pentagon opts for the high end of the range, the number of US troops here would nearly double.

Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said Kabul hoped the additional US forces would be sent to the volatile south and areas along the eastern border with Pakistan, where Taliban fighters are the most active.

“We welcome the increase in US troops in Afghanistan. We have, however, two main demands,” Baheen told AFP.

“The first is that these forces should be deployed in places where they are needed — particularly in (southern) Helmand (province) and along our eastern borders, from where terrorists infiltrate into our country,” he said.

“Secondly, this increase should help intensify the training and equipping of Afghan national security forces so they are able to better contribute to the fight against terror and defend the country.”

Remnants of the Taliban, who were ousted from government in a US-led invasion in late 2001, have stepped up attacks in recent years, with 2008 the bloodiest year yet of the seven-year-long resistance.

Afghan officials allege the fighters have set up safe havens in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt along the border, and accuse Islamabad of not doing enough to stop cross-border operations against Afghan and foreign forces here.

A spokesman for the Taliban dismissed the US troop pledge, saying it would be as useless as a similar ‘surge’ by the Soviets in the 1980s, and would only provide the militants with more targets.

“They now want to send more troops to Afghanistan.... The Russians also sent that many troops but were badly defeated,” said spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi, referring to Moscow’s doomed decade-long occupation of Afghanistan.

“When the US increases its troop levels to that of the Russians, they will also be cruelly defeated,” warned Ahmadi, who claims to speak on behalf of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

“More troops — that means there will be more targets for the Taliban,” he said by telephone from an unknown location.

US president-elect Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw forces from Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan as part of his plan to tackle militancy and instability in south and central Asia.—AFP