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Agencies
ArabNews
LONDON/KABUL,
22 November 2007
Afghanistan is in "crisis" and risks becoming a divided state, as
Taleban insurgents now control vast areas of unchallenged territory,
a think tank warned yesterday. The Senlis Council called for the NATO-
led force in the country to be doubled in size to 80,000, after a
study found that 54 percent of Afghan territory has a permanent
Taleban presence.
"The security situation has reached crisis proportions," said Norine
MacDonald of the think tank, which has offices in London, Paris,
Brussels and Kabul. "The insurgency now controls vast swaths of
unchallenged territory including rural areas, border areas, some
district centers, and important road arteries," she added.
The Taleban, whose regime was toppled in 2001 by a US-led offensive,
have stepped up their attacks recently. There have been more than 130
suicide blasts in Afghanistan this year, most of them blamed on the
Taleban movement. The British Defense Ministry announced the death of
another soldier in the southern Helmand province yesterday, bringing
to 84 the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan since the US-
led invasion of the country.
The Senlis Council said the Taleban "are the de facto governing
authority in significant portions of territory in the south." "It is
a sad indictment of the current state of Afghanistan that the
question now appears not to be whether the Taleban will return to
Kabul, but when this will happen," said MacDonald.
"Their stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable
than ever, and it is incumbent upon the international community to
implement a dramatic change in strategy before time runs out." And
she added: "Defeat in Afghanistan would be catastrophic to global
security, and risks making NATO irrelevant."
Also yesterday, the Afghan Interior Ministry said that police and US-
led coalition forces had killed more than 50 Taleban militants in
fighting in southern Afghanistan.
NATO has a little over 40,000 troops operating in Afghanistan as part
of the International Security Assistance Force. The United States and
Britain are the largest contributors, with 15,000 and 7,700 soldiers,
respectively. Those numbers pale in comparison to Iraq where at the
peak of operations there were nearly 200,000 troops on the ground and
where around 160,000 remain.
The joint force battled militants, killing 50, in the mountainous
area in Charchino district, Uruzgan province, late Tuesday, said Juma
Gul Himat, the provincial police chief. Separately, five militants
were killed when Afghan troops clashed with militants in Uruzgan's
Dihrawud district also Tuesday, Himat said. Neither account could
independently be verified due to the remoteness of the area.
Separately a Taleban commander and four of his guards were killed in
a police operation in Deh Rawood district of the same province on
Tuesday, said the statement.
Meanwhile, the United States military transferred 20 Afghan prisoners
from its detention facility at Bagram Air Base to the custody of the
Afghan Defense Ministry, a ministry statement said in Kabul
yesterday. The handover comes a week after human rights group Amnesty
International called on NATO to stop the transfer of prisoners to
Afghan authorities, claiming they risk being tortured.
International troops had arrested the prisoners during operations
throughout the country, said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the defense
ministry spokesman. The latest transfer from the prison at the main
US military base at Bagram brings to 183 the number of prisoners held
at the military wing of Afghanistan's largest prison, Pul-e-Charkhi,
in the eastern outskirts of Kabul, Azimi said. They include 19 Afghan
prisoners sent from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
he said.
London-based Amnesty International said it "is increasingly concerned
about the fate of many detainees who face the risk of torture and
other ill-treatment when they are transferred to Afghan authorities."
NATO said it has no evidence of systematic torture of detainees
transferred to Afghan authorities and insisted that its policy for
handing over prisoners met all international standards.
Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,
said Tuesday in Kabul that she has no reason to dispute Amnesty
International's findings, and that transfers of prisoners to
Afghanistan's secretive intelligence service "are particularly
problematic."
Under the rules governing NATO's International Security Assistance
Force, its 41,000 troops in Afghanistan must hand over prisoners to
Afghan authorities within 96 hours of their capture. The rules state
that the International Red Cross or Red Crescent must be informed
every time NATO takes a prisoner. |
