NATO needs more troops in Afghanistan if the mission is to succeed, the alliance’s secretary-general said on Friday.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the BBC that NATO had made progress fighting Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, partly because the number of soldiers there was increased.
“I think we need more troops,” said Rasmussen, who took over as NATO chief from Jaap de Hoop Scheffer this month. “I have seen progress in the south, not least thanks to the increase in the number of troops. So definitely the number of troops matters.”
PHOTO: AFP
US officials are considering whether to ask for more troops as they prepare a report on the war in Afghanistan. A draft assessment called for speeding up the training of Afghan soldiers and police — a job that would require more foreign trainers.
Rasmussen said on Friday that the solution for Afghanistan could not rest in the military alone, but also with providing “the Afghan people with better life opportunities.”
“This will be at the core of our new strategy,” he said. “In a few weeks’ time, our commanders in the field will provide us with an updated assessment of the situation. Based on that, we will take the necessary decisions to proceed.”
Last month, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told NATO allies that efforts must be made to talk to rank-and-file Taliban members at the same time as troops are pursue hardline fundamentalists committed to global terrorism.
He said the Taliban should be given the chance “to leave the path of confrontation with the government.”
Meanwhile, a British newspaper has published an interview with the country’s next military chief in which he was quoted as saying the mission in Afghanistan could last up to 40 years.
General David Richards said the 9,000 British troops deployed in Afghanistan should only be needed for the medium term, according to the interview in Saturday’s Times.
But Britain “will be committed to Afghanistan in some manner — development, governance, security sector reform — for the next 30 to 40 years,” he said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS