NATO Marks Afghanistan Progress in 2006

[Lex]

NATO Marks Afghanistan Progress in 2006

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, KABUL
01/03/07 10:06

The 37-nation NATO-led force battling insurgents in Afghanistan said Jan. 3 it had ended the year on a strong note despite many difficulties and was ready to face fresh challenges in 2007.
Spokesmen for the 33,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) also dismissed as "cheap words," reported threats by Taliban leaders of worse bloodshed this year.
"No one is pretending it has been an easy year," spokesman Mark Laity told reporters. "We have had many difficulties, many challenges. But we have ended the year strongly and successfully.
"We know that there will be a lot of hard work still to do. We are not complacent. We know there will be more violence, we know there will be more challenges... (but) this year we have shown the way," he said.
Around 4,000 people were killed in Taliban-linked violence last year, four times more than in 2005, and commanders said the insurgents had shown new sophistication and capability, raising fears of a Taliban comeback.
Most of the dead were rebels but around 1,000 civilians were also killed, along with hundreds of members of the Afghan security forces. About 120 foreign soldiers were killed in action.
"The insurgency has had a very, very bad year," Laity said, adding: "If they launch the same kind of attacks this year as they did last year, the same thing will happen, which is they will take very, very heavy casualties."
The ISAF campaign was now "very firmly trying to split those who are part-time Taliban and those who are just hard-line ideologues," Brigadier Richard Nugee told AFP after the briefing.
"We want to remove the ideologues, marginalize them, make them irrelevant and if necessary kill them. And we want to accommodate back into society those who do it for non-ideological reasons," he said.
The latter included men involved for money or status.
Nugee dismissed reported threats by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and the movement's top commander in the south, Mullah Dadullah, of an increase in attacks on foreign forces in the New Year.
Similar threats in the past had not materialized, Nugee told reporters. A message from Omar for the Eid festivities this month had urged his men to avoid civilian casualties.
Yet, since October "they have killed 400 innocent civilians, and very few ISAF forces", Nugee said.