“This is a critical week for the alliance,'' said Colonel Christopher Langton, head of defense analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “There is a big question over countries' ability to sustain operations.''
06 February 2008: Bloomberg
By Mark Deen
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will discuss the NATO war effort in Afghanistan after Canada threatened to end its participation and Germany rejected a request for more troops.
Rice arrives in London today for meetings with Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Brown will bring up “a range of issues'' including Afghanistan with Rice, according to his spokesman, Michael Ellam.
Concerns are mounting in London and Washington about the ability of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to take on Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan six years after an invasion toppled the Islamist movement's regime. The alliance's defense ministers gather later this week in Vilnius, Lithuania, to discuss plans for their 37,000 troops in the country, amid increasing Taliban attacks.
“This is a critical week for the alliance,'' said Colonel Christopher Langton, head of defense analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “There is a big question over countries' ability to sustain operations.''
Britain will today announce the deployment of all three regular battalions of its elite Parachute Regiment to Afghanistan, supported by extra helicopters and vehicles, the Guardian newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information. The regiment, established as “shock troops'' by Winston Churchill in World War II, provides more than half the members of the U.K.'s Special Air Service. The U.K.'s troop level will stay at around 7,700, the newspaper said.
Canadian Losses
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Brown and President George W. Bush last month that he would withdraw his nation's forces from the mission if other members of NATO don't provide more help in the southern region of Kandahar.
Canada, with 2,500 soldiers in the region, has lost 78 in combat, a higher proportion of casualties than any other country in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Germany's 3,500 soldiers are restricted mainly to the quieter north of the country, and France's force of 1,290 is deployed mainly in the capital, Kabul.
The German government last week rejected a U.S. request to provide more troops in southern Afghanistan, saying that ministers were “surprised'' by the demand.
‘Not Negotiable'
Chancellor Angela Merkel's mandate from lawmakers limits military involvement to northern Afghanistan, her office said on Feb. 1. The terms of German involvement in the country, she said, are “not negotiable.''
Under Germany's post-World War II constitution, any change of Germany's presence would require a new or an adjusted mandate from lawmakers in the lower house of Parliament. Most German voters reject the idea of sending more soldiers to Afghanistan.
The U.S. and Britain are the biggest contributors to the NATO effort in Afghanistan. The U.S. has 15,000 troops under NATO command there, and another 11,000 troops in the country outside NATO command. Last month it pledged another 3,200 Marines to the allied force.
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