BERLIN/KABUL, 18 April 2004 — Afghanistan will still need the presence of foreign soldiers for another 10 years, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said in an interview with a German news magazine to appear tomorrow. Asked how long the international community would go on having to deploy troops in Afghanistan, Karzai said: “About 10 years, I think.”
“That’s the time we will need to have a completely operational army and police force,” he told Der Spiegel. Setting up an independent and professional administration would taker longer, he said adding “probably about 20 years”.
He was also asked about drug trafficking and the possible involvement of government members or those close to them in the trafficking of poppy. “Whoever is involved in drug trafficking cannot be an honorable man. He will face action whatever position he holds.” Poppies are later converted into opium and heroin.
The international community pledged at a conference here at the start of the month $8.2 billion in aid over three years to Karzai’s government. It also confirmed its military commitment would continue until armed Afghan forces are sufficiently set up and operational.
Karzai also believes regional warlords who are threatening the stability and unity of the country will lose their military power within a few years. “In a few years, there will be no more warlords,” Karzai said.
Regional commanders and their militias helped the US-led military topple the Taleban in late 2001, but many have since focused on consolidating their local power bases at the expense of Karzai’s US-backed government.
Karzai said he had summoned to Kabul Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and rival strongman Ustad Atta Muhammad, whose forces clashed in northern Afghanistan last weekend. “The government will soon decide on their future. They must submit. Otherwise they will be dealt with accordingly,” Karzai said according to the text of the interview written in German.
Afghanistan’s National Army of 10,000 troops has begun pushing into areas outside Kabul, but Karzai said he was hoping for the demobilization and disarming of private militias without confrontation.
Karzai said his country was nevertheless likely to need foreign troops for a further 10 years. “We will need that long until we have a fully functioning army and police. Building up an independent, professional administration will take longer, possibly 20 years,” he said.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is next week expected in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Some 6,500 soldiers from 19 countries are serving in the International Security Assistance Force, under the United Nations’ mandate and NATO’s command.
Meanwhile, suspected Taleban militants attacked a security post in southwestern Afghanistan killing eight security officials, a private news agency reported yesterday.
The assailants arrived in three vehicles after sunset Friday and opened fire on a government security post on the Herat-Kandahar highway, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted neighboring Nimroz provincial Governor Abdul Karim Brahiwi as saying.
“There is no doubt that Taleban and Al-Qaeda are involved in the attack,” the governor told the agency. The attackers fled toward the Bakawa region of Farah province and search teams had been sent after them. The post had been set up to protect the main artery linking western Herat province with the southern Kandahar region.
Earlier on Friday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said during a visit to Afghanistan that an intense manhunt will ultimately net the United States’ No. 1 enemy, Osama Bin Laden, but there is no telling how long the hunt might take. Gen. Richard B. Myers denounced Bin Laden’s latest taped message, saying its barbarity was a reminder that US forces are involved in “a fight for freedom and civilization.” Two and a half years after Al-Qaeda organized the deadliest terror attack in history, Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, are still at large and believed hiding in the craggy mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
