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Afghan war may need 10 years: ADF chief

Afghanistan could need foreign military support for 10 more years, Australia's defense chief predicted yesterday as Taliban insurgents intensified fighting against foreign troops in the nation's troubled south.

Australian Defense Force (ADF) commander Angus Houston said that while progress was being made in rebuilding Afghanistan's north and east, more effort would be needed to give people hope in the south, where NATO forces are facing fierce opposition.

"Counterinsurgencies are always long-term affairs," Houston told reporters in Canberra at a briefing on the return home of 200 special forces troops after a year in Afghanistan. "It will take a long time. I don't think anybody's indicated it will be done in a year or two. It is probably going to take in the order of 10 years," he said.

The Taliban has intensified its campaign against the Afghan government and foreign troops since NATO forces took over responsibility from US troops in July, raising new concerns for the country's future.

Australia is withdrawing its special forces, who have spent 12 months in Uruzgan Province, but will keep about 500 troops in Afghanistan, including a detachment of Chinook helicopters and a team of engineers and tradesmen to help reconstruction work.

In a rare media briefing on behalf of Australia's secretive commandos, special forces commander Major-General Mike Hindmarsh detailed some of their missions to hunt down Taliban commanders over the past year.

But Hindmarsh said the fight to win the support of the people of Afghanistan remained in the balance.

"We are talking about a war that is ongoing, and yet to be won, where the battle to gain the trust and support of the population remains in the balance," Hindmarsh said.

The Australian government has ruled out redeploying the special services to Afghanistan's south, saying they need a rest after a busy year of deployments, including one in East Timor. But Houston said they might return to Afghanistan after a rest.

"They are a finite resource," Houston said. "There was a need to give them a break and give them a rest. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that at some time in the future, the government might decide to send them back."

Hindmarsh said Australian forces had been involved in some heavy fighting in Afghanistan, likening their campaign to hunt down Taliban leaders as "akin to poking an ant bed with a stick."

He said the special forces had been in Afghanistan for 395 days, of which they had spent 306 days away from their base, sometimes for several weeks at a time, in clandestine missions to penetrate deep into the Taliban heartland.

He said 11 Australians troops had been injured, none seriously, and none was killed during the deployment.
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