Europe may send 5,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, affirming support for the NATO mission as the US administration nears a decision on increasing US troop levels.
The announcement on Friday came as the Taliban struck again in the capital. A suicide car bomber blasted a US convoy near a US military base in Kabul, injuring nine US soldiers and 10 contract security guards. Three Afghans were killed in the attack — the biggest in Kabul in the last two weeks.
The British prime minister said the NATO strategy must be to encourage a greater role for Afghan forces so that international troops “can start coming home.”
His remarks were made a day after he met with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The NATO chief said that other allied nations have privately pledged more help, but Rasmussen stopped short of saying that countries would send more troops.
“We need our other NATO allies to help,” Brown told the BBC in a London interview.
He said he has been contacting governments both inside and outside the 45-member NATO-led coalition, asking them to send more soldiers to train and mentor Afghan forces so they can take responsibility for security in their own country. He estimated as many as 5,000 troops could be raised from that effort.
Brown has already agreed to send 500 more soldiers to Britain’s 9,000-member force in Afghanistan, despite declining support for the war among the British public.
His assurances that other countries would boost their own troop numbers appeared to be an attempt to show the British public that others are willing to assume a heavier burden in Afghanistan, despite public unease over rising casualties and an Afghan government perceived as corrupt and resistant to reform.
“There has got to be burden-sharing amongst the alliance, and I am sending people around Europe to persuade other countries that they should commit more troops,” Brown said. “We are having some success. But as the debate over these last few months has shown, there is a lot more that we have to do.”
NATO said on Friday that more troops and resources were needed, but other countries were unlikely to commit more forces until US President Barack Obama announces his decision.
In Tokyo, Obama said on Friday he would soon announce his plan for Afghanistan. He told reporters that he has taken time to examine a new strategy because he wants “to get it right.”
Two of his top advisers split on whether to increase US troop numbers, which currently stand at 67,000 — by far the largest contingent.
General Stanley McChrystal, his top commander in Afghanistan, wants tens of thousands more troops to turn back the resurgent Taliban and shore up the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
US Ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry opposes deploying more troops, arguing that they would make the Afghan government more reliant on the US.
Germany’s new defense minister said his country would send more than 100 extra soldiers to Afghanistan in January, joining more than 4,360 German troops already in the country.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing of the convoy on Friday, the biggest attack in the capital since Oct. 28, when Taliban gunmen stormed a guest house full of UN workers. Eleven people died in the two-hour battle, including five UN staff members and the three attackers.
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
RSS