 |
|
Hundreds of Afghans are already being trained by international military advisors |
WASHINGTON, March 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Even as it
continues to battle Al-Qaeda and Taliban elements in Afghanistan, the
United States says it will contribute to the formation and equipment
of an Afghan national army to help the central government stand
against warlords.
With his announcement Monday, March 25, that U.S. troops would join
the effort begun last month by European members of the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld declined to put a dollar amount on Washington's
commitment to the nascent Afghan military.
However, the European forces in Afghanistan presently have been
reluctant to initiate training Afghans in order to establish a
national army, especially for domestic security.
With that tactical and financial support, the Afghan government is
likely to take over the program by the end of the year, Rumsfeld
added.
Between 125 and 160 Army special forces instructors are to begin
training sessions in the next six weeks, the Pentagon said in a
statement, the first phase of a program that resulted from meetings
between a U.S. evaluation mission and interim Afghan chairman Hamid
Karzai.
The program lays out 10-week training cycles emphasizing the soldiers'
basic skill sets and training an eventual group of ranking Afghan
officers to take over the instruction.
The New York Times states that the first training phase, to
last two and a half months, will prepare three ground combat
battalions, each with 600 troops, and two border patrol battalions,
each with 300 troops, senior military planners said.
"From the start one of our missions has been to ensure
Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists, especially
organizations like the Al-Qaeda," said Richard Myers, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"This assistance that we're going to provide to train the Afghan
national army is directly a part of that mission."
Until this point, Washington has refrained from associating with the
British-led ISAF or encouraging its deployment beyond the Afghan
capital, Kabul, to other parts of Afghanistan - something hoped for by
Karzai because of banditry and inter-ethnic strife.
Reiterating his position that Afghans take matters of national
security into their own hands, Rumsfeld said the future of Afghanistan
- including the building of hospitals and of roads or the return of
refugees - depends on a national army, because "you've got to
have security."
A group of 600 Afghans of different ethnic backgrounds, have, since
late February, begun training in Kabul under the supervision of about
a hundred military advisers from western nations such as Britain,
Turkey, Italy, France and Germany.
But a significant number of Afghan provincial governors continue to
question the need for a national army, and the U.S. secret
intelligence agency, the CIA, recently issued a secret report
affirming that the seeds for ongoing civil war in Afghanistan were
still germinating.
Cautiously addressing the continued ethnic rivalries, Rumsfeld said
there was no way to predict the future but it appeared that government
leaders seemed to be on the same page.
"At some point we may be fortunate enough that they'll decide
that it's in their interest to have a national army ... rather than
simply various provinces having their own military forces," the
secretary said.
The U.S. Congress will eventually have to approve funds for Washington
to finance its contribution to the Afghan army, noting that the Tokyo
donors' conference did not specifically allocate monies for its
establishment, although $4.5 billion was promised for civilian
projects.
Other coalition partners will also provide funds but how much, when,
and for how long was not addressed by Rumsfeld.
