The EU is expected to confirm next week plans to double the size of its police mission in Afghanistan to some 400 personnel, diplomats and a document said on Friday.
“EU foreign ministers at their meeting in Brussels will want to show their determination to boost cooperation” ahead of a June 12 international aid conference in Paris, a European diplomat said.
A draft statement prepared by ambassadors ahead of tomorrow’s talks said: “The EU will commit itself to substantially increase its efforts, with the aim of doubling” the police contingent.
The so-called EUPOL Afghanistan mission is expected be “double the size over the next 12 months,” another diplomat confirmed.
On March 10, the foreign ministers said they intended to boost the police training operation, amid US-led calls for thousands of instructors to be sent to the conflict-torn country.
The EU “expresses its readiness to consider further enhancement of EU engagement, particularly in the field of police and wider rule of law,” they said at the time.
But the ministers are expected to go into more detail tomorrow, even if their final declaration will not contain any numbers.
The EU’s police mission had been due to rise to around 230 police, law enforcement and justice experts, as well as administrative staff, deployed throughout the country, and not just Kabul as originally planned.
Its aim is to help build the Afghan police force, as well as mentor and advise interior ministry officials.
However the mission has come in for criticism, notably from NATO and the US.
In September, NATO’s civilian representative to Afghanistan criticized the lack of EU efforts, stressing that Afghan police remained widely corrupt and inefficient, aiding drug-trafficking.
Meanwhile, five Taliban militants were killed when their own bomb blew up as they embedded it in a road regularly used by international troops in southern Afghanistan, police said on Friday.
The militants were planting the device near the town of Musa Qala in the southern province of Helmand, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said.
NATO and Afghan troops often travel on the same road in their operations in the troubled area, he said. A British soldier was killed a week ago in a similar explosion near Musa Qala.
The blast tore the bodies of four of the militants to pieces, Andiwal said.
Musa Qala was a key Taliban base for 10 months until last December when mainly Afghan, British and US troops reclaimed control after an offensive lasting several days.
The southern town was also a key drugs producing center — Helmand accounts for most of Afghanistan’s vast opium and heroin output, a US$4 billion a year trade from which the Taliban profit.
Meanwhile, the head of a leading European security organization is seeking money from the Bush administration to help tighten the border between Afghanistan and Central Asian countries.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s secretary-general, Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, met with US administration officials this week on proposals to help Afghanistan tighten what he calls “a completely open border.”
The organization hopes to set up a training center in Tajikistan.
De Brichambaut said on Friday the organization wants up to US$20 million to set up programs that would train border monitors, customs officials and anti-trafficking police in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
He hopes to begin the projects within months.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of