The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has decided to assume a more prominent role in Afghanistan, while the United States is considering a military fadeout in the post-war country in order to focus on Iraq, analysts said. 

NATO took a substantial step last week for expanding its current operation from the Afghan capital city to provinces, after Turkey and the Netherlands agreed to offer much-needed helicopters for the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kabul.

Defence ministers of NATO members earlier agreed in principle to deploy the 5,500-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan beyond the capital after a United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution authorized it to do so in October.

The resolution was a response to repeated requests by the Afghan transitional government and UN aid agencies, which feared that widespread lawlessness outside was jeopardizing the country's fledgling post-conflict peace and ongoing reconstruction process.

But NATO's decision is shadowed by the peacekeeping force's lack of equipment and its members' reluctance to contribute more troops.

Outgoing Secretary-General George Robertson has been pushing for more troops and equipment for ISAF, the alliance's first mission out of the traditional Europe theater in its 54-year history, warning that "Afghanistan and its problems will appear on all of our doorsteps" if NATO fails the mission.

NATO's takeover of command of the UN-mandated peacekeeping force here in mid-August was hailed as a symbol of its policy change to adapt to the new global security environment after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Under a US-initiated program, NATO has agreed to deploy small civil-military teams, or Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), across Afghanistan to help local security and reconstruction efforts, especially in areas where the Afghan central authority could not reach.

Meanwhile, the United States, which currently has over 8,000 troops here hunting for remnant fighters of the ousted Taliban and their al-Qaida allies, has proposed NATO's eventual takeover of its Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell told NATO foreign ministers last Thursday at a meeting in Brussels that the alliance should consider the possibility of taking over all military operations in Afghanistan "at some point in the future."

However, US and Afghan officials said that a bigger NATO role in Afghanistan would not mean US troops would leave the country, where the ousted Taliban movement is waging a guerrilla war against the US-backed government and foreign troops with elusive explosions and ambushes.

"No matter what the role NATO might take, very likely the US would be a part of the NATO role," US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who first talked about the possibility of an all-out NATO takeover earlier this week, told reporters in Kabul last Thursday.

He said that there was no definition and timetable for NATO's future role in Afghanistan, and "It is simply a thought that NATO is discussing."

The Afghan Government so far has made no official response to the proposal, but a Defence Ministry spokesman said he did not expect a withdrawal by the United States from Afghanistan. "The strategic interests of the United States would not allow it to leave here, they require it to continue the war on terrorism," said General Zahir Azimi, adding that it would make no difference whether NATO or the United Stated leads the anti-terror war in Afghanistan.

Abdul Haq Wala, a former Afghan diplomat and Kabul University professor, said that the proposed handover to NATO would lighten the Pentagon's burden in Afghanistan and help it focus more on the troubled Iraq situation.

"While NATO's future role in Afghanistan would depend on the willingness of its members to send more troops and how it could deter Taliban attacks after integrating its peacekeeping mission with the anti-terror operation," said the analyst.

(China Daily December 8, 2003)