NATO Quickens Drive to Expand Afghanistan

Reuters ^ | Tue Jan 20,11:56 AM ET | John Chalmers

[katman]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Military experts will press NATO (news - web sites) envoys this week to quicken the drive for an expansion of the international peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan ahead of elections in June, an alliance official said Tuesday.

A resurgence of attacks by Taliban militia in lawless provinces beyond the capital, Kabul -- where NATO runs a peackeeping force of 5,700 troops -- has cast doubt over plans for the country's first free presidential poll.

To widen the security net, NATO wants to take command of military teams in 12 urban areas by the middle of the year, but it is faced with reluctance from militarily stretched member states to offer troops and costly resources such as helicopters.

Military and Afghanistan policy officials from Britain, Germany and the United States will Wednesday brief ambassadors at NATO on the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) their countries have already set up.

"This is part of the campaign to convince allies of the value of PRTs and encourage them to get involved," said the NATO official, who asked not to be named.

There are now eight PRTs -- groups of soldiers who carry out small development projects or provide security for aid workers in Afghanistan -- five of which are led by the United States.

NATO so far commands only one of the teams, a large one of 170 troops led by Germany in the northern city of Kunduz. Italy plans to lead another, and Norway is looking at where it could set up a team with Sweden and possibly both Finland and Britain.

Allies have been debating for weeks whether there should be a "one size fits all" concept for PRTs and whether to follow the U.S. model, which focuses on hard security, or the German model, which mixes civilian reconstruction experts with soldiers.

"The briefing from the three countries will pool experience and help thinking at NATO before we approve a final operation plan in March," said one NATO diplomat.

One senior diplomat said setting up PRTs under the command of NATO's Kabul-based International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would be simple enough, but providing forces across the country to protect them would be a far bigger challenge.

"I don't think we've realized that we are going from a patrolling infantry operation in Kabul to a much larger military operation that would require between 3,000 and 5,000 extra troops and a whole range of support machinery," he said.

Military experts say NATO will need to set up a cluster of forward operating bases with helicopters both across the country and on its borders to protect the PRTs. Given the embarrassing struggle it had last year to find enough helicopters even for the Kabul operation this could be a tall order.

[Cronos]

When I saw this, I thought they were going to expand Afghani territory to take over the obrderland territory of the Pashtoons in Pakostan.