NATO expected to beef up Afghan operation

Brussels, Apr 26: NATO is widely expected to go ahead this week with an expansion of its peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, but diplomats said nerves within the alliance were on edge over the risks because of a rise in Taliban attacks.

The plan to nearly double troop levels in Afghanistan to about 17,000 from July and help the United States wind down its presence in the insurgent-hit south will send NATO on what is set to be the toughest ground mission in its 58-year history.

''There will be more casualties in the south and the problem will be how to explain that to public opinion,'' one diplomat from a European NATO country said on condition of anonymity before a foreign ministers' meeting on Thursday and Friday.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer vowed the alliance would defeat resurgent Taliban guerrillas.

''It is a dangerous mission but NATO cannot afford to fail,'' de Hoop Scheffer told a news briefing before the meeting in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

Pledging the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would defend itself robustly from attacks, he said: ''Spoilers should know that if they try to spoil the ISAF mandate, then ISAF will act.''

Taliban attacks

Remnants of the Islamic Taliban movement that ruled Afghanistan until it was ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001 said in March they would mount a spring offensive and the country has had a rise in the kind of suicide bombings seen in Iraq.

Dozens of Afghan soldiers have been killed, along with 13 U.S.

soldiers so far this year. On Saturday, a bomb killed four Canadian soldiers in the southern Kandahar province, one of the regions due to come under NATO control.

NATO took over the ISAF peacekeeping mission in 2003 and covers the capital Kabul, the north and west. The expansion south and subsequently east will help the United States reduce its troop presence this year from 19,000 to 16,500.

Citing the threat posed by a resurgent Taliban, the Netherlands said last week it would send 200 more troops than originally planned to the south, bolstering its planned presence in the area to 1,400-1,600.

Canada has committed 2,200 troops to the NATO mission in Kandahar and Britain is to deploy 3,500 soldiers in neighbouring Helmand, one of Afghanistan's most violent and lawless provinces. It is also the main Afghan opium-growing region.

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, James Jones, rejected suggestions it had bitten off more than it could chew, saying much of the violence was linked to Afghan-led drug eradication efforts.

''I wouldn't characterise it as a spring offensive. It hasn't reached those proportions,'' Jones told a news briefing.

''Most of (the drug eradication) work will be completed by the time most of our troops will have arrived,'' he said.

British Defence Secretary John Reid visited British troops based in Helmand province on Monday, despite officials warning of a possible imminent security threat in the area.

The NATO ministers will also study how the alliance can do more to help African troops struggling to stem violence in Sudan's western Darfur region while maintaining its stance that it has no ambitions for a combat role.

They will also look at how the alliance can assist with a planned handover to U.N. peacekeepers.

Some alliance members, notably the United States, see scope for NATO to offer African Union soldiers more help with training, transportation and logistics.

Reuters

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