Europe to contribute 5,000 extra troops to Afghanistan

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Troop decision at Nato summit provides political relief for Barack Obama
and in Strasbourg
Sat 4 Apr 2009 09.50 EDT

Barack Obama today won agreement for substantial Nato troop reinforcements in Afghanistan, when nine European nations, including Britain, said they would send up to 5,000 troops and logistical help ahead of the presidential elections there in August. Britain is to send 900 extra troops almost immediately, who will remain until October.

The decision, made at a Nato summit in Strasbourg, will be a profound political relief for the US president, who badly needed to be able to show his domestic audience that his offer of a new style of partnership with Europe could reap tangible results.

News of the reinforcements came as Nato named the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as its next leader after overcoming Turkish opposition.

David Miliband the foreign secretary said the surprisingly large number of troops offered was proof of a palpable "Obama effect."

Speaking at the close of the summit, Gordon Brown said: "We are facing what is a complex resilient insurgency led by the Taliban and involving al-Qaida, exploiting links to the drugs trade and safe havens in Afghanistan. For all of us our national security demands that we cannot tolerate any area in Afghanistan or Pakistan that is a base for exporting terrorism.

"With important Presidential elections to come in the next few months we must not allow the Taliban to disrupt the democratic process."

He claimed the scale of the commitments made by other countries including Poland and Italy means "burden sharing over the next few critical months is a reality involving many countries that are part of the Nato alliance".

President Obama said the troop commitment was "a strong down payment" towards securing Afghanistan. "I am pleased that our NATO allies pledged their strong and unanimous support for our new strategy," Obama said. "We've started to match real resources to achieve our goals."

British sources disclosed that Obama had asked Brown at the G20 summit to take the lead in trying to gain troop commitments ahead of the Nato meeting.

America and Britain had become increasingly frustrated at the 28 Nato countries's unwillingness to commit troops to serious fighting against the Taliban in southern and eastern Afghanistan. While yesterday's temporary additions do not mean that Nato countries have committed themselves to a long-term increase in forces, the US claimed there was a definite change of mood.

The countries agreeing to contribute further help, according to European diplomats, include Poland – which is to send as many as 600 troops – Spain, Croatia, Greece and the Netherlands. Germany is expected to confirm that it will be sending extra troops to the largely peaceful north of Afghanistan for the election on 22 August.

France is sending a further 150 military police to help train Afghan civilian police, arguing that last year it announced a large extra deployment.

Britain currently has 8,100 troops in Afghanistan, and is separately considering a larger permanent deployment, which may be facilitated by the imminent drawdown in Iraq. The British contribution to the reinforcements includes 275 troops who were due to return to the UK in July but will now stay until October.

Over the past two days Obama has been gently chiding Europe to do more in Afghanistan on the basis that he has recalibrated his Afghan strategy to put more emphasis on civilian reconstruction and the drawing in of key regional players, such as Iran and Pakistan.

Before the troops announcement was made, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, hastily agreed to review a draft law that allegedly legitimises rape inside marriage for Afghanistan's Shia minority. The review follows phone calls yesterday from Brown and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, as well as warnings from Canada that it will withdraw its troops if the law is passed.

At a press conference this afternoon, Brown said: "We should expect the Afghan government to act in compliance with the norms of international law". He said the draft marital law "risked putting Afghanistan back to its past rather than towards a democratic future where men and women are treated equally".

"People will not accept British soldiers working in Afghanistan to make the country safe if the rights of women are not properly upheld," Brown said .

Karzai has agreed to refer the law back to the Ministry of Justice and has committed himself to veto the law if it infringes the human rights of women. He protested yesterday that the law had been misinterpreted by western media and that it did not ban women from leaving their home without the permission of their husband.

Before the summit, US officials had been resigned to the likelihood that few European countries would answer the call for more troops.

Obama is committing an extra 21,000 troops, and possibly another 10,000 later in the year. He knows he will come under sharp domestic pressure to revert to hard power if his mix of charm and intellectual persuasion does not lead to a tangible European response.

The Nato summit was held against a backdrop of violent protests, including the use of CS gas by French riot police. And in a sign of the persisting tensions inside the 28-nation alliance, the summit at one stage appeared deadlocked over the appointment of Rasmussen, after objections from the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey had rejected the nomination because of Rasmussen's defence of Danish newspaper cartoons depicting Muhammad in 2005.

Later, however, Turkey dropped its objections and it was announced that Nato leaders agreed unanimously to appoint Rasmussen as the next head of the alliance.

"I am deeply honoured to be appointed as the next secretary general of Nato and I will do my utmost to live up to the confidence shown to me by my colleagues," said Rasmussen, who will replace Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on 1 August.