Germany wants strategy shift in Afghanistan

[maddezmom]

BERLIN (Reuters) - NATO's strategy in Afghanistan has to change to focus on security and reconstruction, Germany's defence minister said on Thursday, hours before parliament is expected to extend the German mission there.

Germany has close to 3,000 troops in northern Afghanistan. Lawmakers are widely expected to renew the army's mandate for peacekeeping activities in the country for another year despite escalating violence, mainly in the south where the focus has been on fighting the resurgent Taliban.

"The concept has got to be security and reconstruction," Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung told ZDF television on Thursday. "People must see that we are not occupying forces but rather that we are there to help them."

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Jung rejected comments attributed by the Bild newspaper to the German ambassador in Afghanistan, Hans-Ulrich Seidt, that the military battle in the south could not be won by NATO and that the Afghan government risked losing control of the country in the next 12 to 18 months.

more:http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=1474224§ion=news&src=rss/uk/worldNews

Germany Debates Afghanistan Mandate as Chaos Threatens
The unease over the spiralling violence in Afghanistan and the potential for an outbreak of all-out war is threatening the extension of the German army's mandate which was up for debate in the Bundestag Thursday.

After the German government agreed last week to extend the Bundeswehr's mandate in Afghanistan as part of NATO's International Stabilization and Assistance Force (ISAF), the debate moved to the Bundestag Thursday, where parliament was initially expected to agree to a year long extension.



However, after a leaked statement from the German ambassador in Kabul citing the worsening situation in the failed Central Asian state and similar concerns from an increasing number of politicians across the German political spectrum, that expected agreement is now in some doubt.



Hans-Ulrich Seidt, the German ambassador in Afghanistan, was quoted in a report in the Bild Zeitung tabloid as saying that he was "extremely pessimistic" about the security situation in the country and that it was entirely possible that the Afghan government could lose control in the next 12 to 18 months. This, he said, would see Afghanistan plunged into chaos and the ISAF faced with dealing with an expanded war across the whole country.

more:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2188183,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf