More US troops set for Afghanistan
BayBak, Azerbaijan | 1552 days ago | Wednesday, 18th February , 2009 , 03:34 [am] | International
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. | Barack Obama, the US president, has approved the deployment of an extra 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, the White House has confirmed.
The troops would include one additional US army brigade a marine expeditionary force, along with support staff, Obama said in a statement on Tuesday. |
Barack Obama, the US president, has approved the deployment of an extra 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, the White House has confirmed.
The troops would include one additional US army brigade a marine expeditionary force, along with support staff, Obama said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This increase is necessary to stabilise a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires,” he said.
The move followed a request from Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, Obama said.
The increase is the first instalment on a larger influx of US forces that the US president was widely expected to announce after entering office in January.
The Obama administration is currently reviewing its policy in Afghanistan, the results of which are expected to be released in April, although Obama said the increase in troop would not “pre-determine” the outcome of the review.
Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds says that for Obama to wait until April for a troop increase would be to risk a further spiral of violence, which is why he acceded to his commanders’ request.
However, he says the Pentagon may still be a little wary of too many soldiers in Afghanistan – many in the US are warning Obama not to go down the same route as Lyndon Johnson, the former US president, who found himself in a quagmire in Vietnam.
Analysts say US troop build up in Afghanistan could reach up to 60,000 troops from current levels of 38,000 in coming months.
The move puts troops on the ground in time for the increase in fighting that usually comes with warmer weather and ahead of national elections to be held in Afghanistan in August.
Afghan-US tension
Relations between the US and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, have been strained in recent years, with Obama distancing himself from Karzai in recent comments criticising the Afghan government for seeming “detached” from the problems the country faces.
Obama also told Canadian television on Tuesday that Afghanistan remained “winnable” despite a rise in deadly attacks by Taliban fighters, but said force alone would not guarantee victory.
“I’m absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in the region solely through military means,” he told CBC.
“We’re going to have to use diplomacy; we’re going to have to use development.”
Tensions were also increased after a number of US military operations led to civilian deaths.
A United Nations report says the number of civilians killed in the Afghanistan conflict last year jumped by 40 per cent to more than 2,100.
The US sent troops into Afghanistan in October 2001 following the September 11 attacks the same year, in a bid to destroy the al-Qaeda network and oust the Taliban from power.aljazeera
, Voice of a Nation[1] Print
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