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Vol. 72/No. 5      February 4, 2008

 
(front page)
Washington to send 3,000 marines to Afghanistan
 
Reuters/Rafiq Maqbool
British troops patrol Musa Qala, Afghanistan, December 15, days after fierce battle by U.S., British, and Afghan troops drove out large Taliban force there. Washington plans to send 3,000 marines to the region to bolster its total force of 27,000 U.S. troops in the country. Some 54,000 NATO troops are stationed in Afghanistan, 14,000 of which are from the United States.

BY RÓGER CALERO  
Pentagon officials reported January 9 that Washington is preparing to send at least 3,000 marines to Afghanistan to bolster its offensive against Taliban and allied forces.

The reinforcement troops are to arrive in April, in anticipation of a Taliban offensive this spring, U.S. officials told the media. Some of the troops will be deployed in the southern province of Helmand, a Taliban stronghold and site of recent intense fighting.

Over the past months the U.S. government has been pressing other NATO members who have occupation forces in Afghanistan to provide the extra 7,500 troops requested by the commanding officer on the ground.

“The commander needs more forces there … and the allies are not inclined to provide them, so we are looking at providing additional combat forces,” said Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell, according to the Washington Post.

There are currently 27,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Some 14,000 are part of the 54,000 NATO-led occupation troops. Another 13,000 U.S. troops are operating there separately under the name Operation Enduring Freedom.

The military success of the U.S.-led offensive in Iraq has generated discussion among commanders and White House officials on the pace of the U.S. troop “drawdown” in Iraq and the increase in troop levels in Afghanistan.

“We do what we can in Afghanistan; we do what we must in Iraq,” said an unnamed official of the Joint Chiefs of Staff quoted by the American Forces Press Service.

The Pentagon has shelved for the moment a proposal by Marine Corps Commandant James Conway to shift all marine combat operations from Iraq to Afghanistan, and give the marines primary responsibility for the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, the Reuters news agency reported. Conway argued that the marines were better suited for counterinsurgency fighting in Afghanistan than for carrying out long-term security operations in Iraq.

The proposal has met opposition by military commanders who favor continuing to rely on joint operations involving all branches of the military.

Meanwhile, heavy fighting has continued on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Some 300 Taliban and al-Qaeda troops attacked a Pakistani military base near the Afghan border on January 9, Pakistani officials told the press. The assault was reportedly pushed back.

The mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan is where Osama bin-Laden and other al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are reportedly located. It has become a front line in Washington’s “war on terror.” The area has been a staging ground for attacks on the occupation forces in Afghanistan. More than 80 percent of suicide bombers in Afghanistan are recruited and trained in the region, according to a 2007 United Nations report.

Two Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan were killed January 12 in a firefight with Islamist militias during an operation involving several hundred Dutch and Afghan government soldiers in an area where numerous small groups of Taliban combatants are known to be hiding, reported the International Herald Tribune. There are currently 1,650 Dutch troops in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan as part of the NATO forces there.  
 
 
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