ISAF to deploy outside Kabul as new Canadian commander takes over

NATO’s Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, confirmed on Monday that the NATO-led international peacekeeping force in the Afghan capital, Kabul, would be deployed further afield in the shape of provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs). PRTs are military units engaged in humanitarian and development work. Their deployment has been widely criticised as blurring the line between the military and aid workers. Those advocating better security say the PRTs are too small and have been deployed too sparsely to have any impact on Afghanistan's poor security. Currently there is only one 200-strong ISAF PRT under German command in the northeastern city of Konduz. There are smaller PRT teams made up of troops from the 12,000-strong US-led coalition forces in some other provinces including the troubled cities of Kandahar and Paktya in the south and east of the country. NATO’s announcement came just one day after bloody clashes between local commanders left 20 dead and tens of others injured in the northeastern province of Badakhshan on Saturday and Sunday, according to state-run Kabul Television. “We will see in the near future that NATO will take more provincial reconstruction teams under its wings in the country,” Scheffer said, following the change of command of the 6,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from German Lieutenant General Gotz Gliemeroth to Canadian Lieutenant General Rick Hillier on Monday in Kabul. The change in command and ISAF’s decision to deploy in the country's troubled provinces came amid repeated calls from international aid agencies as well as the Afghan government for ISAF’s geographic mandate to be expanded beyond the confines of Kabul. “I am confident that more PRTs are going to be set up. When exactly that is going to happen, I do not know,” the NATO Secretary General told IRIN. Meanwhile, Afghan authorities are optimistic that more PRTs will enhance security in areas where provincial police cannot cope. “Unfortunately we have not been able to establish a capable and trained police force across the country and the PRTs will prove a key element in accelerating police training, voter registration for presidential elections and administrative reform in the local and provincial levels,” Helallalludin Hellal, Afghan deputy interior minister, told IRIN. Saturday’s incident was one of the bloodiest since the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001. It highlighted the urgent need for an increased international military presence across the country until the fledging Afghan army and national police can be trained and deployed nationwide in significant numbers.