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Obama's new Afghan plan to target al Qaeda havens

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-27 23:13

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to send thousands of troops to train Afghan forces as part of a new war strategy that will focus US efforts on destroying al Qaeda safe havens and rolling back the Taliban insurgency.

A US soldier belonging to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) walks during a patrol outside Bagram airbase, 50 kms north of Kabul on February 28, 2009. [Agencies]

A Taliban commander poured scorn on the new plan, which Obama will announce at 9.25 a.m., saying an injection of 4,000 troops would make no difference on the ground.

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Three senior US administration officials said in a briefing before the announcement that Washington will reach out to Russia, China, India and even Iran in an "aggressive regional effort" that also recognizes Pakistan as part of the theater of war.

"For the first time, we are approaching this problem as two countries -- Afghanistan, Pakistan -- but one challenge and one theater for our diplomacy and our reconstruction efforts to work in. We see this as an integrated problem," said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In an illustration of Pakistan's fragile security, a suicide bomber killed at least 48 people in a mosque in the Khyber region of the northwest, one of the tribal areas from which al Qaeda and the Taliban operate, an official said.

The attack came hours before Obama was due to announce his new war strategy.

Obama's new approach comes with violence in Afghanistan at its highest level since US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. The Islamist militia has sharply escalated its attacks, often operating from safe havens in tribal border regions of Pakistan.

Obama, who criticized his predecessor George W. Bush for becoming distracted by the Iraq war and allowing security to deteriorate in Afghanistan, ordered a review of US policy as one of his first official acts after taking office on January 20.

"This is not a reversion to a narrow War on Terror focus," said Alex Thier, an Afghanistan expert at the US Institute of Peace in Washington.

He said that although the Obama administration was talking about going after al Qaeda, it was also committing to a broader effort to stabilize Afghanistan. "This is a comprehensive approach to dealing with a critical, unstable region," he said.

Under the plan, 4,000 military trainers will embed and partner with the Afghan military, while hundreds of US government civilian personnel will boost under-resourced reconstruction and development programs.

The trainers are in addition to the 17,000 troops Obama has already ordered sent to Afghanistan to help stabilize the country ahead of a presidential election in August.

"We want to move as aggressively and as quickly as possible to build up an Afghan army that is capable of defending its country and defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda," one of the officials said.

Britain was also ready to send more troops, the head of the British army told the Times newspaper, with part of a mechanized brigade once headed for Iraq now "earmarked for Afghanistan."

General Sir Richard Dannatt said there were no plans to send the whole brigade of around 4,000 but the number of British troops serving in Afghanistan could rise to "somewhere in between" the current level of 8,300 and 12,000.

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