NATO upbeat after Marjah offensive

Mar 3, 2010, 15:54 GMT

Brussels - NATO officials on Wednesday sounded a positive note about their operations in Afghanistan following what they saw as an unexpectedly strong showing by Afghan government troops in the recent assault in central Helmand.

The offensive in Marjah was the first carried out under NATO's new policy of protecting Afghan citizens and following up military actions with law-and-order enforcement - a strategy which is seen as crucial to breaking the back of the Taliban-led insurgency.

Diplomats within NATO said that there was a new mood of optimism in the alliance following the approval of the new strategy and a subsequent reinforcement of some 40,000 troops to Western forces in the country.

'The operation in Marjah is the first test of the new NATO approach in Afghanistan, and the first results show that it is the right strategy,' NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told journalists in Brussels.

'Helmand is the first demonstration. It won't be the last: I can guarantee the Afghan people that they will benefit from this new comprehensive approach in other areas this year,' he said.

The Marjah offensive saw some 6,000 NATO troops fighting alongside around 4,000 NATO-trained Afghan soldiers in one of the key Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan.

The deployment of Afghan troops to fight the militants is a key NATO policy, designed to hand over control of the country step by step to local forces so that Western soldiers can go home.

'Overall, the (Afghan) forces performed better than most had expected, which is very promising,' the head of NATO's Afghan army training mission, General William Caldwell, said.

In particular, the Afghan army's commando battalions 'performed superbly' in the fighting, he said.

At the same time, recruitment to the Afghan army and police has surged since December, giving rise to new hope that NATO will be able to bring together the 305,000 Afghan soldiers and policemen it wants to field by the end of 2011.

But Caldwell warned that the training mission was still short of the trainers it needs to do its job fully.

The mission currently counts some 3,300 trainers, but wants another 1,900 to reach full strength, he said. NATO members and allied states pledged to send 541 extra a week ago.

Rasmussen said that he 'would not call that (troop raising effort) a failure,' but rather 'the first step in a gradual process.'

'I feel confident that we will be able to gradually build up the training mission,' he said.