NATO prepares to take ISAF command

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) - is preparing to take over the command of the UN-mandated 4,500-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan on 11 August. More than 50 NATO troops are already setting up their headquarters in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "We are pretty much on track, and we have also initiated quite an extensive programme of briefing for the ambassadors of NATO member states," NATO spokesman, Mark Laity told IRIN on Friday from the alliance's headquarters in Brussels. Laity added that key staff were receiving special briefings on security and politics in Afghanistan. This will be the first operation outside Europe in the alliance's 54-year history. Preparations are also underway on the diplomatic level. The visiting Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, briefed the North Atlantic Council, NATO's top decision-making body, on Wednesday. The UN Secretary-General's special envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, will also address the council on 25 July. "What we want to achieve on the ground is exactly what earlier ISAF commands wanted to achieve, and that is the stabilisation of Afghanistan, and we will have the same mission, the same mandate, name and flag," Laity said. NATO has already played a significant role in support of ISAF, with NATO member countries providing 95 percent of troops deployed. "For NATO itself, it's a very big moment, it's a transformation of NATO and part of our new role outside Europe," Laity said. The North Atlantic Council agreed on 16 April 2003 to significantly expand NATO's support to ISAF. NATO will be responsible for the planning and command of the peacekeeping force. This will include providing a force commander and headquarters. ISAF, drawn from 29 countries and currently under joint German-Dutch command, is separate from the 11,500-strong US-led military operation hunting Taliban and Al-Qaeda renegades in Afghanistan. Canada will be the biggest contributor to ISAF when it takes command of the mission next month, deploying some 1,800 troops. Asked whether after the change in command, ISAF would expand into regions outside Kabul as requested by the UN, aid agencies and the Afghan government, Laity commented that the debate was premature. "I am not ruling it out, it will depend on what the UN wants to do and what the North Atlantic Council is prepared to do, but it's too early as we have not started on the ground," he said. Security experts, however, remained optimistic. "It's very important because it essentially opens a window of opportunity for the expansion of troops to provinces outside Kabul," Mark Sedra, a researcher with the Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC), told IRIN from the former German capital. "This is a commitment for a long time, and success is the only option NATO has been thinking about," he said, adding that the move will give ISAF continuity. The peacekeeping force has up to now been under a six-month rotation command system, which forced each nation leading ISAF to look for a new country to lead the force before its term expired. Sedra maintained that the step would also be a boost to regional security. "This will be a confidence builder on the regional level, and it will have an overall positive effect," he said.