UNITED NATIONS, July 20: Lingering Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters remain a threat to stability in Afghanistan, the head of United Nations operations in that country, told the UN Security Council on Friday, as he asked for more foreign peacekeepers.

While it is unclear how many members of the radical groups remain in the country 10 months after a massive US-led offensive, officials must assume that they remain a threat, said Lakhdar Brahimi, the secretary general’s special representative to Afghanistan.

“The questions we had six months ago — about how many members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda are left in the country and what kind of threat they really pose to the stability of Afghanistan — remain unanswered,” Brahimi said. “Until we have evidence to the contrary, we must assume these groups can still pose a threat.”

Brahimi noted that security remained “precarious” in many regions of the country. “In the north, for example, the situation has seriously deteriorated in recent weeks,” he said.

Brahimi deplored what he saw as weak international support for an expansion of the international security assistance force, “the one measure that is certain to improve the security situation”, as he called it.

“We believe the expansion of ISAF would have an enormous impact on security and could be achieved with relatively few troops, at relatively little cost and with little danger,” he said.

The ISAF has some 5,000 soldiers from more than 20 countries, but its jurisdiction is limited to Kabul and its suburbs. Turkey has recently taken over command of the force for a six-month rotation.

Brahimi wants to see the force doubled and have its mandate extended beyond Kabul.

Yet the request is unlikely to be approved despite support from several speakers during the five-hour public debate.

“The debate remains theoretical,” said French ambassador Jean-David Levitte. “No country is ready to send the thousands

of soldiers that would be needed.”

Brahimi was also skeptical of the new foreign-trained Afghan national army and police force that security council nations want to see in place to provide security instead of more foreign soldiers.—AFP