Nato summit to focus on Afghanistan
That's a major reason why Nato's annual summit, being held next week in Riga, Latvia, will focus on the war-torn country far to Europe's east, where 32,000 of the alliance's soldiers are fighting to improve security and help the Afghan government take control.
Brigadier Richard Nugee, chief of effects for Nato's International Security Assistance Force, said leaders of Nato nations will reconfirm their commitment to Afghanistan at the summit.
''I think there is a very strong belief that this country is extremely important to the security of the world,'' Nugee said. ''And therefore Nato will do its bit and keep going here.''
One topic high on the agenda will be troop strength. The 43,000 total international soldiers in Afghanistan are more than 2{ times the number here in 2003, but Nato's top commander this week urged nations to boost troop levels, saying he was about 15 per cent short of requirements.
Supreme Allied Commander Gen James L. Jones warned that a failure to provide the resources he needs would make the mission longer and more costly.
The United States has contributed 12,000 troops to the Nato force and has another 11,000 anti-terrorism and logistics forces operating outside Nato's purview. Lt-Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said US officials would wait until after the summit to see if any more US troops would be sent to Afghanistan.
Nato officials are hoping that countries like Germany, France and Spain can be persuaded to drop operating restrictions known as caveats that forbid their forces from operating in the volatile south, where Nato forces have engaged in heavy battles and the largest number of Taliban operate.
Jones said he would convey the message ''loud and clear'' to Nato leaders. But German leader Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that Berlin does not plan to send troops to the south, arguing before parliament that Germany is needed to maintain stability in the north.
Canada and Britain have taken on the brunt of the fighting in the south, which has seen major battles between Nato and Taliban insurgents. Forty-one British and 34 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year, a sharp rise in deaths that has fuelled calls back home for those troops to be withdrawn. But British and Canadian leaders have called for resolve, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on a visit to Afghanistan this week, said Britain would stay ''for as long as it takes.''
''Here in this extraordinary desert is where the future of world security in the early 21st Century is going to be played out,'' he told British troops in Helmand province.
Military leaders say the Taliban's decision to fight a conventional battle in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province in September was disastrous for the insurgent fighters and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of militants.
''We knew that the south was going to be more difficult and we knew we would be tested militarily and we were. We survived that test I think rather well and now we are pressing on with the goal of showing the people of Afghanistan that good things happen with the (President Hamid) Karzai government,'' Jones said.
Nato commanders here say their counter-insurgency battle can never be won only through military means, which is why soldiers are helping to build schools, roads and government centers. Nato teams are helping to train the 36,000 Afghan army soldiers so they may one day fight on their own.
Nugee and other military leaders credit the alliance's latest operation, a joint Nato-Afghan offensive called Operation Eagle, in helping to stamp out Taliban fighters. The number of attacks has dropped steadily since September, and now average under 10 a day countrywide.
One burgeoning problem: drugs. Afghanistan's world-leading opium cultivation rose 59 per cent this past harvesting season, a crop that yielded 6,100 tons of opium, enough to make 610 tons of heroin-- outstripping the demand of the world's heroin users by a third, according to UN figures.—AP