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U.S. Spends $1 Billion a Month on Anti-Terror Campaign
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The
New York Times reported Monday that the United States expects to spend more than $1 billion per month on the early phases of the war in Afghanistan, a tab likely to rise as the Pentagon builds its forces in the region.
So far, the costs of the military campaign have been relatively modest, reported the
Times. The military campaign has involved small numbers of special operations forces on the ground in Afghanistan and several dozen daily bombing missions by fighter jets.
But the cost of the conflict has risen almost daily as the U.S. has expanded its military presence in and around Afghanistan, officials told the newspaper.
"We're talking not about an arithmetic growth in costs, but potentially a geometric growth," said a senior administration official, referring to the total cost of fighting the war and defending the nation's borders.
The costs are expected to continue to soar in coming weeks, as Washington works to upgrade airfields in central Asia and undertakes other logistical improvements.
The ever-expanding price tab for the military deployment comes as the United States also faces a growing bill for its efforts to quickly improve domestic security in the face of the recent anthrax attacks.
The Times reported that some members of the U.S. Congress are beginning to raise the possibility of having allied nations help finance the war effort.
One model is the 1991 Gulf war, when the U.S. coalition partners, especially Arab nations, paid 90% of the $60 billion tab.
"One measure of their level of support this time will be how much money they are willing to put up," Washington state Congressman Norm Dicks, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, told the daily.
Pakistan, meanwhile, plans to move more than 80,000 Afghan refugees to a new camp on the border with Afghanistan and hopes to send them back home when the fighting there is over, a government official told IslamOnline Monday.
"Starting Nov. 25, the refugees will be moved from the Jalozai refugee camp to a facility five miles from the Afghan border in the Bajur agency, a tribal administrative district in northwestern Pakistan," said Waqar Maroof, a spokesman for Pakistan's Afghan refugee agency.
"Other refugees from Jalozai, a teeming camp 30 miles east of Peshawar in northern Pakistan, will later be moved to another tribal area on the border," he added.
Following repeated pleas from the United Nations, Pakistan has reluctantly agreed to give the Afghans official refugee status, which should make it easier for them to receive aid. But the government wants them close to the border so they can be repatriated at the end of the conflict.
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