Afghans welcome NATO expansion
Foreign Desk Report

KABUL—Afghanistan welcomed NATO’s decision to expand its peacekeeping mission on Friday, saying it would boost security, while the Taliban said more alliance troops would only increase opportunities for guerillas to attack them. NATO foreign ministers approved mission rules on Thursday for an expanded Afghan peacekeeping force next year, which Washington hopes will allow it to cut US troop levels in the country. The agreement leaves the most dangerous counter-insurgency work in the hands of the 20,000-strong US-led force but gives NATO more scope to help Afghan forces with training and other tasks such as disarming illegal groups.
“The people of Afghanistan thank them for their contribution to security and reconstruction,” President Hamid Karzai told reporters at his heavily fortified presidential palace. Afghanistan lacked the resources and its security forces were not equipped to maintain security itself, he said. NATO wants to raise its 9,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to about 15,000 from early next year. It will spread its bases in the north and west, and the capital, Kabul, to the more volatile south, a base for many insurgents.
Britain, Canada and the Netherlands are earmarked to lead the expansion into the south but NATO still needs further troop contributions before it can go ahead early next year. US proposals last year for NATO to take overall command of foreign military operations in Afghanistan were rejected by European allies, including France and Germany, who insisted that the alliance should stay clear of counter-insurgency operations. Under the rules agreed by the ministers in Brussels, the NATO-led ISAF will be operating in three-quarters of the country where it will continue to focus on peacekeeping and security. “When the expansion happens, NATO will focus on security matters and this will allow the US army to better concentrate on counter-insurgency activities,” said Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi.
A Taliban commander said an increase in foreign troops would make no difference to the war against such forces, which he said would continue until Afghanistan gained its independence. In fact, said Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, more troops would mean more targets for his fighters. “The expansion of NATO operations in Afghanistan and increase in the number of NATO troops will make it easier for the Taliban to target and attack them,” Dadullah told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. Nearly 60 US soldiers have been killed in the Taliban-led insurgency this year, most of them in the south and east where the militants are most active.