Vol. 71/No. 6      February 12, 2007

Senators Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh, both Democrats, sent a letter to Gates urging him to send more troops to Afghanistan to stave off a Taliban offensive expected sometime in the spring. Clashes between U.S.-led forces and Taliban supporters have tripled this year, according to the U.S. military.

“While we hope to soon discuss with you our impressions of the deteriorating situation in Iraq, we write this letter now, and with utmost urgency, about the need to expand our stabilization presence and increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan,” said the letter from Clinton and Bayh, a copy of which is posted on Clinton’s web site.

The Canadian government is rotating 1,160 troops to Afghanistan as part of its 2,500-member force based in Kandahar. Italy’s deputy prime minister, Massimo Dalima, rejected a call by some members of his country’s governing coalition to pull Italian troops out of Afghanistan. Rome has almost 2,000 troops there.

Washington has approximately 24,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, 11,000 of which are part of a NATO-led force of 20,000. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the top U.S. officer in Afghanistan, said he has asked the Pentagon to order a battalion of the 10th Mountain Division to stay in the country until the end of the year, rather than leave this spring.

About 5,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were deployed to Afghanistan January 20, the Army Times reported. They will be joined by a 5,000-strong South Carolina National Guard brigade as part of the regular U.S. troop rotation.

According to the U.S. military, the number of attacks by Taliban forces tripled between 2005 and 2006. In 2005 there were 27 suicide attacks, and 783 roadside bombs. Last year those figures jumped to 139 and 1,677 respectively. There were 1,558 firefights with Taliban forces in 2005 and 4,542 in 2006. The Islamist Taliban government was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

At a rally at the Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in New Brunswick, Canada, the country’s defense minister Gordon O’Connor told the troops being sent to Afghanistan that Ottawa would support the NATO mission until it is accomplished. Forty-four Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.

Leftist parties in Italy’s coalition government, including two Communist parties and the Greens, have threatened to vote against continued financing for Italian troops in Afghanistan in retaliation to the government’s decision to allow the expansion of a U.S. military base near Venice, the Financial Times reported.

Expansion of that base was agreed to by the previous government, headed by Silvio Berlusconi, which sent Italian troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. The current government of prime minister Romano Prodi pulled the troops from Iraq but has kept them in Afghanistan. Dalima said withdrawing Italian troops from Afghanistan would mean “relinquishing our political role at the international community level and this would isolate Italy from Europe and the world.”
 
 
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‘Not one penny, or person, for Washington’s wars!’
Young Socialists attract support at D.C. rally
No peace party in Congress  
 
 
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