BAGRAM AIR BASE (Afghanistan), Dec 21: US forces are ready for immediate action in Iraq, but it would not draw attention away from the pursuit of extremists in Afghanistan, General Richard Myers, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Saturday.

“Clearly we are pledged in Iraq. We are prepared to fill these pledges and obligations at any time,” he told reporters at Bagram air base, the nerve-centre of US-led military operations in Afghanistan.

Myers said a war in Iraq was by no means inevitable, despite US accusations that Baghdad is in “material breach” of a United Nations weapons resolution, which Washington says gives it the authority to attack.

He said that in the event of war in Iraq, the US would be able to maintain its year-old commitment in Afghanistan with international backing in both countries.

“The US is obviously capable of fighting a war on two fronts. But the issue is that we are probably not going to have to do that alone.”

Myers was visiting Bagram, 50 kilometres north of Kabul, to greet US troops serving in the area over the Christmas period.

His brief visit came just hours after a US soldier was killed in a clash with extremists in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan.

Myers said the rising incidents of attacks on peacekeepers did not represent a deterioration of security in Afghanistan, although the east of the country remained a serious problem for coalition forces.

“Things continue to get better. It is still continuing to improve. We know there are times when US and coalition forces are going to be shot at.

“There are still very dangerous parts of the country, particularly in eastern Afghanistan.”

He said the main threats remained the Taliban, its associates from the Al Qaeda network and the anti-government forces of renegade former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami.

The general said eastern Afghanistan was likely to remain a hotbed of extremist action due to its proximity to the porous border with Pakistan.

Although the mountainous frontier is thought to harbour numerous extremists, Myers said Washington remained happy with Islamabad’s commitment to tackling terrorism.

“We are going to need the cooperation of the Pakistan government. To date we have got that cooperation... and we are satisfied with that cooperation.”

He added that any conflict in Iraq was unlikely to have any effect on troop levels in Afghanistan, although the United States was looking to move into “stability operations”, he said.

“Nobody has a crystal ball that can talk about troop levels in Afghanistan. For the next few months they will be pretty much the same level.”

Around 8,000 US troops are deployed in Afghanistan. A small team is engaged in a pilot civil-military project in the southeastern city of Gardez despite protests from aid agencies that say it endangers their work.

“If Afghanistan is going to have a chance for stability and prosperity in the future, these teams are the key,” the general said.

Myers was due to meet US troops based at Kandahar before flying on to Kuwait.—AFP