Nato members wary of role beyond Kabul

[NNN0LHI]

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Nato countries yesterday gave a guarded response to US calls for the American-led alliance to expand its mandate beyond Kabul.

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, struck a chord with President Hamid Karzai when he said during his visit to Afghanistan last weekend that the expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) would be a "good thing".

Isaf operates under a United Nations mandate and was last month placed under the command of Nato - the first fully fledged mission outside the alliance's traditional territory of Europe. Its mandate is restricted to Kabul, where the 5,500-strong force is helping the Afghan Transitional Authority maintain security, train a city police force, protect the airport and disarm and reintegrate the separate militia into a united army.

Nato countries yesterday said they were in no rush to move outside Kabul nor formally raise the issue at the North Atlantic Council (NAC), headed by the alliance's ambassadors.

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[LiberalFighter]

1. Fellow worker had this to say about foto

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030908/168/57kug.html
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has his hand almost to his nose as if to say bush is up to here in shit and asking us to throw down a rope and pull him up. The trouble is that if we do that he will pull us down with him in the same shit.