KABUL, 8 October 2005 — NATO’s planned deployment of thousands of troops into southern Afghanistan heralds a new effort to bring peace to a region which is still battling Taleban remnants and drug barons, officials said yesterday. But there is still uncertainty over what the new soldiers’ rules of engagement with insurgents will be and whether they will actually be allowed tackle the opium trade.
The peacekeepers will move into a largely lawless area that is under the influence of Taleban commanders and local strongmen reaping huge profits from fields of illegal poppies that supply the bulk of the world’s heroin. The new deployment under the umbrella of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will focus on extending the government’s influence and building the security required to enable reconstruction, a spokesman said.
About 8,500 ISAF soldiers from 36 nations are already involved in similar work in the calmer northern and western parts of the war-ravaged country and in the capital Kabul. “Our focus is on the infrastructure required for the security of the country, the police stations and courthouses,” ISAF spokesman Andy Elmes said.
“We have not ruled out doing the hearts and minds impact projects like building schools and wells but would rather the NGO (nongovernmental organization) community focus on those and we focus on building the security infrastructure required to allow us to leave,” he said.
The peacekeepers’ work on civilian-military task forces called provincial reconstruction teams will be key to building the conditions for stability, Afghan defense ministry spokesman Mohammed Zahir Azimi told AFP. “One of the main reasons for insecurity in the south and east is unemployment and poverty, and via reconstruction projects they will work for people, which will help bring stability and peace,” he said.
The NATO forces were also seen as “the most legitimate foreign troops in Afghanistan. That is why it can be more successful in maintaining security in the area,” he said. A US-led coalition of about 20,000 troops has been based in southern and eastern Afghanistan for almost four years hunting the Taleban and Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
They have the mandate to carry out counterinsurgency operations, unlike the NATO peacekeepers, and are involved in almost daily clashes. The insurgency has claimed more than 1,300 lives this year, many of them of militants, up from 850 last year.
With some of NATO’s 26-member nations reportedly reluctant to subject their troops to the same threats facing the US-led coalition, Elmes said one of the main decisions to be made about the new ISAF deployment involved its rules of engagement, although the troops will have the authority to defend themselves. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Thursday the new mission would number a “few thousand” troops, taking the ISAF force in Afghanistan to up to 15,000. Its relationship with the US-led forces also had to finalized, he said, to find “synergy” and avoid coming into conflict with each other, de Hoop Scheffer said.
