Renewed calls for ISAF to be expanded as mandate is extended

The aid community in Afghanistan was positive on Thursday about a United Nations Security Council decision to approve a year-long extension of the international force in Kabul. But there were renewed calls for the force to be extended into parts of the country where poor security is still compromising humanitarian work. "This country needs a foreign army right now because it does not have a national army. On the other hand it has many regional armies. We have been advocating for an extension of ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] to volatile parts of Afghanistan, notably to Mazar-e Sharif and to other centres of insecurity," Rafael Robillard, head of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) told IRIN. The Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to extend the mandate of ISAF for one year beyond its current term that runs until 20 December and welcomed a German and Dutch offer to take over its command for six months from Turkey. "ISAF should stay in Kabul for two or three years, the Afghan authorities need this time to establish a national army and police force and to deploy these forces throughout the country," Col. Samet Oz, ISAF spokesman in Kabul, told IRIN. But there was official disappointment that the 22-nation, 4,800 strong ISAF contingent would not be deployed to other cities to provide badly needed security. "We feel this is a great handicap," Afghanistan's UN Ambassador Ravan Farhadi was quoted as saying on Wednesday. Ordinary Afghans were equally unhappy that the decision was no more than an extension of ISAF rather than the hoped-for expansion. "My family is in the south. I had to pay to pass seven roadblocks controlled by warlords, this is not right, the West must put soldiers everywhere," a Kabul businessman told IRIN. Lack of security remains a critical concern in Afghanistan a year after the United States and its allies launched a war against the Taliban regime and dispersed Al-Qaeda terrorists. It is hampering efforts to rebuild the country, particularly in the north, and contributes to the huge problem of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). The humanitarian community remains particularly concerned following the sexual assault on a German aid worker recently outside Kabul and the reported death this week of a Japanese man involved in aid work in the northeast of the country. Other big NGOs operating in Afghanistan were less concerned about extending ISAF to other parts of the country. Head of CARITAS, a confederation of Catholic relief and development organisations working in Afghanistan, Martin Van Asseldonk, said putting foreign troops everywhere in the country could be counterproductive. "Minimising outside interference is much more healthy. Otherwise you create only artificial security often and this doesn't last," he told IRIN. But what many agencies find problematic is plans to extend the civil and developmental role of the 9,000 US troops in Afghanistan as part of a separate non-ISAF US-led international coalition involved in hunting Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "This could be bad for security of aid workers as the perceived neutrality of humanitarian actors could be compromised," Van Asseldonk added. In a major restructuring of US forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon plans to disperse teams of combat soldiers and civil affairs specialists around the nation to help boost reconstruction efforts, defence officials announced last week.