Agence France Presse, 03 April 2006
It is difficult to say when NATO will take command of the coalition force in Afghanistan, the US ambassador said, after a top NATO general said the handover could be completed by August.
NATO peacekeepers, currently based in northern and western Afghanistan, have started moving into the south, in a stage called phase III, to take over from a separate US-led coalition force.
They are later due to move into the east, in phase IV, to take command of the entire foreign force that is trying to stabilise the war-ravaged country, including by fighting a Taliban-led insurgency and the massive drugs trade.
NATO's top military commander in Europe, US General James Jones, said Friday the expansion could be completed by the end of August.
But US ambassador Ronald Neumann said this could be optimistic.
"There is an ongoing discussion about exactly when we get towards what's called phase IV which is where the American command then merges under NATO," Neumann told reporters.
"Phase IV does not have a fast time attached to it yet. It could be August, it could be November," he said.
Several technical matters must be sorted out before the merger, such as the establishment of a headquarters, Neumann said.
NATO took command in 2003 of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that had been in the country since the ouster of the Islamist Taliban government in a US-led operation in late 2001.
ISAF was first in the north and then moved into the west, with both areas seeing relatively little of the violence that has claimed hundreds of lives in the insurgency hit south and east.
Jones said phase III could be completed by July. Once the merger had been completed, the force would comprise between 23,000 and 25,000 troops, he said.
The expansion of the NATO force, which currently numbers about 10,500 troops from 36 countries, will allow the United States to cut its deployment from about 19,000 to about 16,500 troops.
---------------------------
Citation: "No set date for NATO's command of coalition in Afghanistan: US," Agence France Presse, 03 April 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060403/pl_afp/afghanistanattacksnato
---------------------------