Source:
GuardianBritish and other foreign troops deployed in Afghanistan face a "very tough" time ahead and can expect to be engaged in a combat role for three or four more years, Nato's most senior civilian official in the country said today.
Mark Sedwill, a former UK ambassador to Afghanistan, warned of further troop deaths in the region, saying: "We cannot allow judgment of success to be the absence of casualties."Speaking on the margins of a Royal United Services Institute conference in London, Sedwill laid out crucial steps towards ending the conflict, to be taken over the next few months.
A "critical test" would be the imminent operation in Kandahar designed to improve security and governance in the Taliban's heartland, he said.
That operation was not primarily a military one, Nato insists. However, as more troops are engaged in counter-insurgency operations in southern Afghanistan, it was inevitable there would be more casualties, Sedwill said.
more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/29/afghanistan-combat-nato-official_________________________________
NATO/US forces engaged in combat until 2014. :banghead: