· Musharraf warns of threst to troops
· War on terror 'to last a generation'
Tony Blair has been urged by the West’s closest Muslim ally in the war on terrorism to change course in Afghanistan and back a “Marshall Plan” to prise the country from the grip of the Taleban. At the same time the Prime Minsiter predicted that Britain’s already embattled troops were set to face a resurgence from Taleban fighters. Mr Blair flew to Pakistan on a mission to step up the battle against terrorism and gave warning that that it was a global battle that would take a generation to win.
In talks with President Musharraf of Pakistan in the regional governor’s mansion in Lahore, Mr Blair offered £480 million to combat the preaching of hatred in Pakistani religious schools and the two leaders agreed further co-operation against Taleban militants in Afghanistan.
While Mr Blair was on his way to Pakistan, Gordon Brown made his first visit to Iraq on Saturday. Meeting British troops in Basra, he said that it was crucial for the country to be seen to be running its own affairs. He pledged £100 million of aid for economic reconstruction.
Mr Musharraf attacked the WestÂ’s strategy in Afghanistan yesterday, and said that the task could not be achieved by military action alone. He added that only Pakistan was implementing the right strategy. He called on the West to implement a plan of billions of dollars of aid to rebuild Afghanistan, just as the US spent billions of dollars rebuilding Europe after the Second World War.
British troops were sent this year to Helmland province in southern Afghanistan to help with reconstruction, but have become embroiled increasingly in bitter fighting with the Taleban. Since the invasion in 2001, 20 British troops have been killed by enemy action, of whom 18 lost their lives in Helmand this year.
Mr Musharraf said the war “cannot be won through military action alone, you have to come up with a broader strategy. This strategy must involve a political element and reconstruction or development.” Reacting angrily to accusations that he was not doing enough to stop the Taleban crossing the border to safe havens in Pakistan’s largely lawless northwest provinces, Mr Musharraf turned the tables on Britain and America by declaring:
“We are the only one who are trying to implement the whole strategy, which means military, political, and also reconstruction. More action is required on the Afghanistan side, because the war will be won on the Afghan side, because the Taleban problem is on the Afghan side.” He added: “I have indicated to the Prime Minister also that we believe there is a requirement for a massive inflow of developmental funds there, some kind of a Marshall Plan, some billions of dollars.”
Mr Blair agreed that reconstruction had to go hand in hand with the military action, but said that despite suffering enormous casualties at the hands of British troops, the Taleban would still try to take back control of some parts of the country. “The Taleban will try to get a foothold back, they will, that is what we expect, but our will has got to be superior to theirs,” he said.
He insisted the strategy was right, declaring that in the War on Terror, “we begin to win when we start fighting properly, and I think we are now fighting properly, but we have got to do more”. But in a gloomy prognosis, he said that the global battle against terrorism “took a generation to grow and will take a generation to defeat”.
His spokesman said that the amount of aid was not the problem in Afghanistan, but that the fighting made it difficult to carry out reconstruction. Britain alone had given £500 million while $10.5 billion was pledged at the International Donors Conference in London in January “The problem is not the lack of financial aid available. The problem is getting the physical infrastructure and government infrastructure in place to spend that money,” Mr Blair said. He added that in Helmand province, Britain had built 13 health clinics, 89 reservoirs, 423 wells and eight classrooms.
Mr Blair also visited the Saudi-financed Faisal mosque in Islamabad to talk to moderate Islamic leaders about ways to combat the growth of religious extremism and to stop it being exported to Britain.
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