Afghan Attacks Won’t Deter NATO

NATO’s defense ministers on Thursday reaffirmed their commitment to sending nearly 7,000 troops to southern Afghanistan by the fall despite an increase in violence in the region that has sparked fears of a Taliban resurgence in the country.

Gathered at the alliance’s headquarters for their annual meeting, the ministers said they would go ahead with the deployment and would not be deterred by attacks that have killed eight Canadian and two British soldiers since the move into the south began this spring.

“No one should doubt NATO’s commitment to this mission, nor our ability to carry it out,” said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the alliance’s secretary-general. “Afghanistan is a long-term commitment, and allies are resolved to provide our mission with the military tools to do the job.”

Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, here for his first meeting with the alliance defense ministers since assuming his post in late 2004, said he believed that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be able to put down the uprising in the south in “one or two months.” He said the offensive appeared timed to destabilize the region as NATO troops were arriving.

“There has been an effort by Taliban and their allies to take advantage of this time of transition,” Wardak said after a 90-minute discussion with his counterparts, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. “They want to influence public opinion in European capitals.”

NATO military officials have questioned whether the upsurge in violence is solely due to a return of Taliban- and Al Qaeda-linked forces in the south. Some of the most high-profile violence has occurred in Helmand province, one of Afghanistan’s prime poppy-growing regions, and commanders have said some of the attacks may be related to drug trafficking.

But officers also acknowledge that the introduction of NATO forces for the first time in the south, which will double the number of coalition soldiers in the region, and Afghanistan’s annual spring fighting season are primary factors in stirring anti-coalition activity. Military officials estimate that about 600 fighters are in Helmand, nearly double the figure of six months ago.

“This is now the season that the Taliban get more active, and then it will die down again,” Rumsfeld said.

U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the alliance’s supreme military commander, said in a recent interview that Taliban-linked forces also might be trying to influence NATO’s European members. The British-led deployment to the south, which is largely made up of British, Canadian and Dutch forces, has been controversial in Europe.

“There have been some countries in NATO, in the political decision-making process over whether to join the mission expansion or not, that have had pretty public debate, particularly in Holland,” Jones said.

“If I were a member of opposing military forces, I probably would have said: ‘Hey, I’m kind of encouraged by this. Maybe if we get in there and we raise all kinds of difficulties we might be able to seed some dissension within the alliance, and some nervousness in capitals.’ ”

NATO now leads the International Security Assistance Force, a coalition of nearly 10,000 soldiers from 37 countries both inside and outside the Atlantic alliance. An additional 21,000 American troops are in Afghanistan.

Despite the rise in violence, Henk Kamp, defense minister of the Netherlands, where the deployment of 1,200 Dutch peacekeepers was nearly voted down by parliament in February, told reporters that his country remained committed to seeing out its two-year mission.

“There will not be problems for the Dutch government,” he insisted.

Violence has been largely limited to southern and eastern provinces bordering Pakistan. But anti-American rioting last month in Kabul, the Afghan capital, touched off when a U.S. military truck crashed into Afghan vehicles, has raised new concerns that even once-quiet regions of the country may be becoming unstable.

Afghan officials said this week that 17 Afghans were killed in the rioting.

Rumsfeld and defense ministers from nations that have sent troops to Afghanistan met with Wardak on Thursday morning to discuss the NATO mission.

Wardak used the session to steel NATO’s resolve, telling ministers that they must stay the course to “prevent the reestablishment of a haven for terrorism.”

After the meeting, he said he had received support and commitments from all 26 of the NATO defense ministers.

The Pentagon announced in December that it would be able to reduce U.S. forces in Afghanistan by about 2,500 -- thanks, in part, to the increased NATO presence. Despite the announcement, U.S. troop levels have yet to fall significantly.

“I do not have the impression the Americans are pulling back troops,” Scheffer said at a news conference.

The U.S. troops in the country are mostly deployed in eastern provinces bordering Pakistan. That region eventually is expected to come under NATO command as the alliance takes over all peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, a move Jones hopes will occur this year.

Rumsfeld said that the move toward a full NATO takeover was discussed only briefly at the meeting and that there was no timetable. He added that troop levels may rise and fall as threat levels change, but he would not comment on how large a force he felt was needed to stabilize the country.