Reuters, 26 January 2006
BRUSSELS - NATO said on Thursday the expansion of its peacekeeping force to the south of Afghanistan might not take place until the second half of the year, later than it had hoped.
NATO wants to raise troop levels from 9,000 to 15,000, but the plan has been thrown into doubt by Dutch hesitation over whether to contribute 1,200 soldiers. The expansion is key to U.S. hopes of cutting its troop levels and easing pressure on an army severely stretched by its commitment in Iraq.
"This (expansion) is a very complicated thing to do in terms of force generation and actually setting up the operation," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told a regular briefing.
He said earlier expectations of a deployment south early in 2006 were "perhaps overly optimistic" and that he now expected the expansion to take place between June and September.
NATO took over the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in 2003, two years after a U.S.-led coalition ousted Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers.
The Dutch parliament is due on Feb. 2 to debate and possibly vote on a cabinet decision to send more troops.
Britain and Canada are the other two main contributors to the enlarged force, but alliance officials acknowledge it would be hard to plug any gap left by the Dutch.
The planned expansion from NATO's current bases in the north, west and the capital Kabul takes it into more dangerous territory and is seen as a key test of the 26-member alliance's ability to take on tough security tasks.
The move could also determine to what extent the U.S. army can switch troops out of Afghanistan. It leads a separate 20,000-strong force called Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and media reports say it is looking to trim that by some 2,500 soldiers.
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Citation: "NATO says might need more time for Afghan expansion," Reuters, 26 January 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26588403.htm
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