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Some Western Diplomats Say U.S.-Led Coalition an "Illusion"
ISLAMABAD, Dec. 3 (News Agencies) - The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan is fraught with ambiguity and Washington's single-minded pursuit of Osama bin Laden, according to Western diplomatic sources quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Pakistan
"There is no military coalition against terrorism in Afghanistan," said a Western diplomatic source in Islamabad. "It is an illusion."
The source said "great disorder" and a "dangerous mixture" of military operations and humanitarian work have characterized the military deployment in Afghanistan.
Since the deadly September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the United States has made it clear its main aim is to capture or kill bin Laden - who they claim masterminded the assault - and topple the Taliban, who have been hosting him in Afghanistan for more than five years.
"As always, the Americans look at their short-term interests," another diplomatic source said.
Western aid agency sources complained of the "heavy ambiguities" and an "unhealthy climate" characterizing current military operations in Afghanistan, which they say are hampering their work on the ground.
"They [the Americans] don't have a good understanding of the Afghan problem although they have been involved in this country for 20 years," said a relief agency source in Peshawar.
Philippe Bonhour, head of mission at the French non-governmental organization Aide Medicale Internationale (AMI), which has been in active in Afghanistan since 1980, said the coalition's activities were starting to "irritate" Afghans.
"The intervention of the Western coalition may be legitimate," he added, "but it is starting to cause concern and a certain irritation among Afghans, including the intellectuals, who worry about this foreign intervention on their soil."
U.N. officials appear to share these concerns but are unwilling to comment publicly at this stage.
Bonhour said he was worried about the dangers of mixing military and humanitarian operations, and the risks for Western relief workers who could become targets for reprisals for their countries' participation in the coalition.
Further clouding the issue is division within coalition ranks over the timing of the deployment of international peacekeepers in Afghanistan. Some have called for an immediate deployment so aid workers can be protected.
But the White House said Friday the military campaign had not run its course and the situation was too "fluid and dangerous" to send in peacekeepers.
Airdrops of American food rations, launched simultaneously with the start of U.S. air strikes on October 7, have already sparked criticism from relief agencies.
Western relief workers urged the United Nations on Monday to come up with a new Security Council resolution that would be more specific about the role of the military in Afghanistan. The U.N. resolution of November 14 was somewhat vague on military protection for humanitarian operations.
The day after the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution on November 14 - which paved the way for the inter-Afghan talks currently underway in Bonn - U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard admitted the world body was totally ignorant of the coalition's elaborate military plans.
The U.S. is dominating Western forces in Afghanistan, with a deployment of between 1,500 to 2,000 troops. Britain and France have sent smaller units. It was revealed Sunday, meanwhile, that Australian and German military liaison officers were bunkered down with the U.S. Marines at a desert airstrip near Kandahar, the Taliban's last stronghold.
In November, after Northern Alliance forces swept through northern Afghanistan and captured the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz, U.S. and British special forces were there to help put down a rebellion of pro-Taliban prisoners of war.
Little information has leaked out on this "dirty job" by the special forces and other intelligence agents, or on the real degree of cooperation between themselves or with the Northern Alliance.
A number of British newspapers in mid-November, claimed London had delayed the dispatch of 6,000 British soldiers to Afghanistan because the United States was more concerned with tracking Osama bin Laden and his Taliban protectors than installing a force to protect humanitarian aid convoys.
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