“It is almost obvious that we may see an Iraq-like situation in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is proving a tough experience for NATO,” Francois Gere, president of the French Institute for Strategic Analysis in Paris, told TFT.
Jean-Francois Bureau, spokesman for the French Defence Ministry, also sounded apprehensive. “We are in situation that is still very dangerous,” he told TFT to underline that Afghanistan is becoming serious than before.
Strategic analysts and military authorities in Paris say Afghanistan and NATO’s role there would dominate the agenda for the NATO Summit scheduled for Nov 27-29 in Riga, Latvia.
Afghanistan has experienced a dramatic increase in attacks on coalition forces this year leaving more than 3,700 people dead and hundreds of injured.
A report by the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, a Kabul-based body of Afghan and international officials charged with overseeing the implementation of reconstruction and development blueprint, says insurgents are launching 600 attacks a month as of the end of September this year.
This is up from 300 attacks a month at the end of March this year. Ever since the NATO took command of military operations on October 5 this year from the UN-sanctioned International Security Assistance Force, the insurgency-linked violence has increased, especially in four southern provinces.
Nearly 100 suicide attacks killed 160 civilians, 40 Afghan security personnel, six government officials, including a provincial governor, and 14 foreign troops this year.
There are 31,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan fighting alongside around 8,000 US-led coalition troops, as well as Afghan army and police, but the insurgency is growing and spreading to new areas where the writ of the central government of President Hamid Karzai is weak.
NATO is also worried that France and Germany are keeping their soldiers away from combat operations and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer last week urged lawmakers of the alliance nations to “lean on their governments to remove restrictions on troops” operating in Afghanistan.
Addressing the closing of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Quebec City, Canada, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that so-called national caveats – limitations put on the missions soldiers can undertake – are understandable, but ultimately divisive. There is a growing rift in the military alliance as Canadian, American, British and Dutch forces in southern Afghanistan bear the brunt of heavy fighting against the Taliban insurgents whereas the French, German and Italian forces patrol relatively quiet sectors in the north of Afghanistan, under self-imposed limitations that keep them out of combat operations.
The French and German stand on reduced participation in combat operations is understandable since they opposed the US’ unilateral war in Iraq but committed troops to the ISAF for nation-building exercises in Afghanistan and not to guerrilla warfare. Scheffer is also concerned at the deadlock in the NATO-EU relationship. In his Speech at the Security and Defence Agenda (SDA) Conference in Brussels on November 6, he emphasised the need to break the deadlock.
“This relationship is currently suffering from under-stretch rather than overstretch. Indeed, given the magnitude of today’s security challenges, it is remarkable how narrow the common agenda of both institutions remains. All this despite many efforts, including by the SDA, to bring NATO and the EU closer together.
“I am under no illusion about the time it will take to overcome the well-known formal obstacles to our cooperation. But this does not mean that we are condemned to inaction. NATO and the EU need a sustained dialogue about harmonising their military transformation.”
Gere pointed out to TFT a more serious problem that might affect NATO operations and which, he said, is far more serious than the Taliban’s ability to step up attacks. “In the next two to three years, Europe may think it is going to be expensive to stay in Afghanistan. The EU member countries are not contributing extra troops in Afghanistan not because of fear of casualties but because of the funding factor,” he said.
Gere thinks it would be difficult for France and some countries in Europe to support the indefinite stay of the NATO forces in Afghanistan. “There’s got to be some progress and if there is none or too little, EU countries will diminish support for the mission in Afghanistan. EU wants a clear political map and an endgame for Afghanistan.”
On his part, NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan believes a defeat in the military mission would be a ‘huge blow’ to Europe and the United States. “If we were defeated then of course it would be a huge blow to Europe, to America and most of the free world,” Gen. David Richards said during questioning from Afghan senators in Kabul last week.
Afghan sources in Kabul told TFT via phone that the Taliban were winning back the local population support as poor security and growing corruption in the government were leading the public away from the government. “The Taliban have considerably grown stronger than they were in 2001. Today, there are people who shelter them when the same people were ready to take up arms against the same insurgents,” the sources added.