NATO chief calls for more military trainers for Afghanistan (Roundup)

Sep 2, 2009, 16:34 GMT

   Brussels - NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Wednesday called on the military alliance's 28 member states to send more instructors to train Afghan security forces, saying they were urgently needed if NATO force numbers were ever to be reduced.

   Rasmussen said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization needed to do more to train and equip Afghan forces so that Afghans could take over the leadership of their own defence.

'What we are focussing on is training Afghan soldiers. We have already set the goal to increase the number of Afghan troops to 134,000. And I would not exclude the possibility that we need to expand that number further,' Rasmussen said at a press conference at NATO's headquarters in Brussels.

NATO currently has 57 training teams in Afghanistan, 10 less than required. Each team consists of between 10 and 20 members, depending on which NATO country they come from.

The requirement is due to increase to 75 teams by the end of the year, with further increases likely in 2010, so as to boost the Afghan army's current force of 90,000.

'There will be a strong need for a significant increase in the capacity of the Afghan security forces if we want to fulfil our ultimate goal, namely to hand over gradually the responsibility for security to the Afghans themselves,' Rasmussen said.

   There are currently 64,500 soldiers in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. And Rasmussen would not rule out that ISAF might have to expand further over the coming months.

'We will now look closer at the commanders' assessment' before making 'more precise assessments as far as troop numbers are concerned,' the NATO chief said.