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| Afghanistan |
| Dutch Afghan deployment eases NATO concerns |
| 2006-02-04 |
| Fierce fighting between militants and Afghan troops backed by US warplanes in southern Afghanistan left at least 16 suspected Taliban rebels and three police dead, an official said yesterday. The fighting broke out near southern Helmand province's Sangin district when police began a sweep in response to several recent attacks on security posts. Amir Mohammed Akhund, deputy governor of southern Helmand province, said more than 250 Afghan police and army troops were hunting dozens of militants. It was the biggest guerrilla attack in Afghanistan for several months and came hours before the centre-right Dutch cabinet confirmed it would send troops to southern Afghanistan, ending months of political uncertainty that had threatened to bring down the government, embarrass Nato and stall international peacekeeping efforts. The announcement followed a marathon parliamentary debate in which the vast majority of MPs in the 150-seat Dutch lower house - including all but one member of the three largest political parties - agreed to send up to 1,400 soldiers on the two-year mission. The breakthrough came when PvdA, the Labour opposition party, overcame concerns about the likely effectiveness and security of the Nato operation and sided with the main parties of government in backing the mission. The outcome was painful for D66, the smallest of the three governing parties, which opposed the move, believing Uruzgan, the region where they will serve, is too unstable to allow reconstruction. Boris Dittrich, D66 parliamentary leader, resigned yesterday after fierce criticism of his party's threat to quit government - which would trigger a snap general election - if the deployment went ahead, a threat it later withdrew. Nato officials had expressed concern that a No vote by the Dutch would slow down the roll-out of the operation, which is set to take place during the first six months of the year. It could also have embarrassed Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato secretary general and a former Dutch foreign minister, who has identified Afghanistan as Nato's most important mission. A Nato spokesman said: "We are glad that the Dutch parliament has confirmed the government's decision to go forward. What we have done in Afghanistan up to now is a success. This decision will help us reinforce the success." The expansion to the south of the country will be spearheaded by 3,300 British troops, as well as 2,200 Canadians, but the Dutch contingent was seen as a significant part of the operation, for both symbolic and practical reasons. The Dutch decision came as western security sources in southern Afghanistan warned of a rise in al-Qaeda infiltration in the region, and an increase in suicide bombings and radical preaching in local mosques. The Dutch detachment will include armoured vehicles as well as air support from F16 jet fighters and Apache helicopters. *The lower house of the Czech parliament yesterday approved the dispatch of an 120-strong special forces unit on a six-month mission to Afghanistan. Karel Kuehnl, the defence minister, told the lower house the mission would be similar to one deployed in 2004 when Czech elite forces searched for fighters of the former Taliban regime in the Afghan mountains. The troops will serve alongside US units under the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, and will be based at the Bagram base north of the capital Kabul, he said. The lower house voted 127-39 to approve the mission. The upper house approved the mission earlier this week. At present, the Czechs have 60 soldiers in Afghanistan under separate Nato missions. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |