NATO to expand Afghanistan presence

There are no reviewed versions of this page, so it may not have been checked for adherence to standards.

Thursday, August 4, 2005

NATO has confirmed today that it intends to expand its presence in Afghanistan by sending forces into the south and east of the country in 2006. The move will see NATO take the lead role in Afghan security.

Presently, much of NATO's 8,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is based in the capital Kabul, with units also based in the north and west of the country.

The NATO decision has been welcomed by the United States who hope that they will be able to withdraw some of its 19,000 troops from Afghanistan. The US forces are based in the south — the centre of much of the violence against Coalition forces in the country — and are not under NATO command.

Ironically, in the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan, the US opposed the move amid requests by Afghans for NATO to spread across the country.

Today, Turkey handed over control of ISAF to an Italian/UK-led unit, commanded by Italian Liuetenant-General Mauro Del Vecchio. The deputy-commander is British Major-General Roger Lane of the Royal Marines, who previously served in the country in 2002.

Command of ISAF rotates every six-months. Previous ISAF commanders have been Canadian, British, French and German.

A recent surge in violence against NATO and US forces — blamed on Al Qaida and the remnants of the deposed Taliban regime — has seen nearly 1000 people killed since March.

NATO intends to send an additional 2,000 troops for the Afghanistan parliamentary elections scheduled to take place next month. Hamid Karzai became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan after presidential elections were held on 9 October 2004.

It is believed that the British Army will deploy up to 5,000 troops next year, likely to be made up of the élite 16 Air Assault Brigade.

Sources

"Nato's Afghan mission to expand" — BBC, August 4, 2005
"Italy becomes international force in Afghanistan" — Reuters, August 3, 2005
"More British troops to Afghanistan" — Daily Telegraph, June 14, 2005

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication.