I need more men and weapons to defeat Taleban, says Nato general

[cal04]

MORE troops, more helicopters, more transport aircraft: the shopping list of reinforcements for the increasingly beleaguered Nato mission in Afghanistan was spelt out yesterday by the alliance’s top military commander.

After a visit to Kabul to be briefed on Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) campaign, General James Jones, the American Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, took the unusual step of voicing in public his dismay that the 26-nation alliance had failed to provide the troops and equipment needed for such a dangerous mission.

Urging Nato members to come forward with reinforcements, General Jones said the next few weeks could be decisive in the fight against the insurgents. “We could do with more of anything we can get,” one senior Nato official said.

(snip)
At present there are about 20,000 Nato and affiliated troops from 37 countries, of whom about half are in southern Afghanistan. General Jones told a news conference that the alliance had been surprised by the extent of the fighting in the south and more troops were needed. The military sources in Kabul said that General Jones, who served with the US Marine Corps, had in mind another battlegroup of about 1,000 troops, backed with helicopters and full logistical support which could be used at will whenever Isaf units required reinforcement.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2348173,00.html

[applegrove]

1. Nato went in the help the USA find the people who did 9/11 and put

an end to it. To show the world. Then USA farted off..and pretty much has left not enough troops there for the last few years. What did they expect?

And turn few ****ing sattelites on the battles in Afghanistan. So someone in command can tell where Canadians are. So they will not be shot at and killed again by friendly fire.

[CHIMO]

2. NATO commander seeks help in Afghanistan

KABUL — NATO's top commander urged allied nations on Thursday to send reinforcements to southern Afghanistan, where resurgent Taliban militants are inflicting heavy casualties on foreign forces and have captured a remote town for the second time in two months.

NATO has been surprised since moving into the region by the intensity of Taliban attacks and by insurgents' willingness to stand and fight rather than hit NATO forces and run, he said.

Gen. Jones said he was disappointed by some NATO nations' lack of commitment to the efforts in southern Afghan provinces.

Britain, Canada and the Netherlands have taken lead roles in the south since NATO took command there, pumping in about 8,000 troops and bringing the NATO force's presence to about 20,000 nationwide. The alliance claims to have inflicted grave insurgent losses, including more than 250 in an offensive near Kandahar city since the weekend.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060907.wnato0907/BNStory/International/home

I need more men and weapons to defeat Taleban, says Nato general

After a visit to Kabul to be briefed on Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) campaign, General James Jones, the American Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, took the unusual step of voicing in public his dismay that the 26-nation alliance had failed to provide the troops and equipment needed for such a dangerous mission.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2348173,00.html

Nato's Afghanistan troop dilemma
Nato's very public announcement on 8 December that it will send an additional 6,000 troops to Taleban-infested southern Afghanistan next spring and Washington's more cryptic remarks that it wants to withdraw 4,000 troops from the same region at the same time are being read very differently by all those affected.

Most Afghans and many diplomats in the capital, Kabul, see it as the start of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, no matter how profusely Washington's spin machine insists that "the US will never abandon the Afghans".

Senior aides to President Hamid Karzai say any US withdrawal, no matter how it is camouflaged, will be disastrous for people's morale and remind them of the US withdrawal from Afghan affairs after the Soviet pullout in 1989.

The Taleban and al-Qaeda would like to see a political and military vacuum develop as US troops begin to depart.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4526150.stm

Canadian Troops Dig in for a Long Battle with the Taliban

Just a few days before he and Prime Minister Stephen HARPER made their surprise March trip to visit Canadian troops in Afghanistan, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor tried to calm growing anxiety about the combat role Canada appeared to be taking on in Kandahar. Asked by Maclean's about what looked like an increasingly dangerous mission in the volatile southern Afghan province, the general-turned-politician seemed exasperated by the impression that Canadian and other coalition forces were taking the fight to the Taliban. "Our role in Afghanistan is not to conduct combat operations," O'Connor said. There might be some "rooting out of insurgents," he allowed, "but we're not primarily there for combat operations."

Three months and a bloody Taliban springtime resurgence later, and the defence minister's reassuring tone rings hollow. Not only have Canadian soldiers engaged repeatedly in full-scale battles in Kandahar, they are expecting much more of the same as they join a massive coalition summer-long push into Taliban sanctuaries in four southern Afghan provinces. It's called Operation Mountain Thrust, and between 500 and 1,000 Canadian combat soldiers will be among the estimated 11,000 troops taking part, including U.S., British, Australian and Romanian contingents, and about 3,500 members of the Afghan army. U.S. military officers say the operation - the coalition's most ambitious military campaign since ousting the Taliban government in 2001 - has been in the works for 18 months.

Reconciling that long planning period with what O'Connor said about the nature of the Kandahar mission in March is not easy. And his soft-pedalled description differs sharply from what Canadian officers say has been going on in the field, and looks likely to intensify. "The coalition here has been going on the offensive," said Lieut. Larry MacIntyre from the Canadian base in Kandahar last week. "We're throwing the Taliban off balance, and Mountain Thrust is a continuation of that." He said the plan for the scorching summer is to advance into villages that have not yet known a significant coalition presence. "It's going to be into some pretty challenging terrain and into areas where we know the Taliban are operating," MacIntyre added. "We're going to extend the authority of the government of Afghanistan."

If the recent pattern holds, the Taliban will put up stiff resistance. In a series of clashes through the spring, the insurgents who represent what's left of the ousted regime, which once made Afghanistan a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists, have shown a surprising willingness to engage in drawn-out gun battles. And although coalition troops, including Canadians, have been wounded and killed in these clashes, the conventional fighting is perhaps not entirely unwelcome.

http://www.encyclopediecanadienne.ca/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M2ARTM0012885

[bemildred]

3. "More whiskey, and fresh horses for my men!". nt

[bhikkhu]

4. Money talks. The Taliban has it, thanks to opium.

While they once worked toward the elimination of opium production, it seems they have now pragmatically allied with the producers and become fabulously rich. Who would have thought?

[The Wielding Truth]

5. Bush cut and run to Iraq. Fool and his money. Greed and incompetence.

:grr: Now Nato is still fighting to finish what we left undone.

Mission NOT accomplished!