US vice president-elect Joe Biden pledged long-term US support for Afghanistan during a visit and the commander of NATO-led forces told him that thousands of new US troops expected this year will need more support against surging Taliban violence.
US president-elect Barack Obama has promised to end the war in Iraq and refocus US military efforts on Afghanistan. Biden’s visit is a sign that Obama plans to make the region an immediate priority.
In a meeting on Saturday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Biden “talked about ... the fight against terrorism, American troop increases as well as equipping and supplying of the Afghan forces,” a statement from Karzai’s office said, without providing any details.
Earlier, the top US general in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, told Biden that thousands of new US troops expected in the country’s south would need more support to beat back surging Taliban violence.
Some 32,000 US troops in Afghanistan serve alongside another 32,000 other NATO-led and coalition troops, the highest number since the invasion to oust the Taliban from power began in 2001.
The US is rushing up to 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and some will go to its volatile southern provinces to combat the spiraling violence.
“General McKiernan explained the current situation and talked about the incoming troops and the need for additional enablers ... things like helicopters, engineers, military police, transportation assets,” said Colonel Greg Julian, a US military spokesman. “As we expand in the south, we will need those additional enablers to cover for the troops.”
Southern Afghanistan has become the center of the Taliban-led insurgency, that left some 6,400 people — mostly militants — dead last year alone.
Foreign and Afghan troops are the target of daily roadside bombings and suicide attacks. Last year, 151 US troops died in the country, more than in any other year since 2001.
Obama has called Afghanistan an “urgent crisis,” saying it’s time to heed the call from US commanders for significantly more troops.
Biden also discussed Afghanistan’s priorities for this year with the UN’s top representative for the country, Kai Eide, UN spokesman Adrian Edwards said.
“Their meeting touched on security, political and developmental issues, including donor coordination, police reform and regional cooperation,” Edwards said.
During his meetings at NATO’s Kabul headquarters, Biden also applauded some of the US troops stationed there.
“Thank you, I mean it sincerely,” Biden told the troops, a NATO statement said.
“It’s a big, big deal, what you’re doing here. You’re making a big sacrifice in a [challenging] environment. Thank you for your service,” he said.
The senator from Delaware will take office as Obama’s vice president on Jan. 20.
Biden and South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also visited the Torkham border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Biden’s office said.
Biden’s visit to Afghanistan follows his trip to neighboring Pakistan, where aides said he met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
Biden’s tour comes after five US soldiers were killed in two separate attacks in southern Afghanistan and as US officials warned the violence would likely intensify in the coming year.
Three US soldiers were killed in an explosion on Friday in southern Afghanistan, Julian said. Another two soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on Thursday in a marketplace in Kandahar Province’s Maywand district.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS