NATO fears Afghanistan to be black hole for terrorism

LONDON—If NATO were to allow Afghanistan to fall under Taliban rule again, the country would become a “black hole for terrorism training”, the alliance’s Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has said, according to The Daily Telegraph.
“I am absolutely convinced that if we allowed Afghanistan to fall back into Taliban rule it would become a failed state again and a black hole for terrorism training,” Scheffer said, speaking from NATO headquarters in Brussels. “Who knows that the terrorists are not going to hit nations that they have not yet hit? That’s why you see me strongly motivated — that is the message I will give at Riga,” Scheffer said, referring to an upcoming NATO summit in Riga, Latvia.
“What is our first priority? It is Afghanistan.” Scheffer said, however, that NATO could do better in Afghanistan if it had more forces, and said he was doing everything he could to get commitments for more troops. “If you ask me, Secretary General, are you entirely happy and satisfied with the forces at the moment? I say no, we should and could do more. Some of our allies can and should do more.” While getting caveats in place on fighting troops lifted is a priority to Scheffer, “we also need more forces and I am in the process of doing everything I can to get them.”
The NATO secretary general also said that he forecast international forces, including non-alliance troops, staying in Afghanistan for “more than a generation”. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called on allies on Friday to allow their troops to be deployed anywhere in Afghanistan “in an emergency,” toning down previous calls for full mobility.
Germany and other NATO allies have stated ahead of next Tuesday’s summit in Riga that they will reject any request for troops to be moved out of their current zones to the violent south, scene of heavy fighting with Taliban insurgents. De Hoop Scheffer acknowledged that many such restrictions, known in NATO as caveats, would likely remain. But he urged nations in an interview to allow exceptional deployments elsewhere to support other NATO members in need.
“When I make a plea for the lifting of caveats, my thesis is that, in an emergency, NATO nations will come to each other’s assistance in one way or another,” he told Reuters. “You can be assured that if I formulate my bottom line on the caveats, that is a line that is shared by the heads of state and government,” he added. The 32,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is facing the fiercest ground combat in the alliance’s 57-year history. More than 150 foreign soldiers have been killed in fighting this year.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed in a newspaper interview published on Friday that Germany would not send troops from their base in the north of Afghanistan to the south, where British, Dutch and Canadian troops lead NATO operations. However, German officials have noted that the parliament mandate governing the 2,800 German troops currently centered around the calmer north Afghanistan does allow them to operate elsewhere on temporary missions. NATO commanders have also sought to persuade Spain, Italy, France, Turkey and others to drop restrictions on where their troops operate in Afghanistan, but the German refusal has attracted most attention.
“I was a bit worried that the important discussions on caveats were developing into a sort of North-South discussion with a lot of focus on Germany,” said de Hoop Scheffer. “Germany is playing a very important role in Afghanistan ... Other nations have caveats as well,” he added. NATO sources say some nations ban their troops from taking part in night-time or high-altitude operations, while others insist on being consulted before their soldiers are sent near the restive border with Pakistan.
Afghanistan is due to top the agenda of a brief summit in the Latvian capital Riga consisting of two working sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. —Agencies