Afstan: NATO ISAF commander hopes for results soon

If things don't work out as hoped this too could come back to haunt, especially with Canadian public opinion.

If the security situation in Afghanistan's volatile south doesn't improve over the next few months, civilians who have yet to choose sides in the conflict could cast their lot with the Taliban and the country could be used once more as a staging ground for international terror attacks, the British general in charge of the NATO-led mission here said yesterday.

Lt.-Gen. David Richards, who met with NATO officials and troops at Kandahar airfield after a grim week in which five Canadian and four British soldiers were killed, said NATO will be redeploying troops and police over the next four to six weeks. They should know "within three to four months whether we've made a dent" in the insurgency and an impression on the "floating population" of Afghan civilians yearning for peace and stability.

The 37-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force assumed command for operations in the four southern provinces, including Kandahar, last week, and Lt.-Gen. Richards made it clear NATO was going to keep taking the fight to insurgents so that development and reconstruction projects necessary to win popular support for the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai could proceed.

Lt.-Gen. Richards said private polling that was "accurate and empirically sound" suggested 70 per cent of Afghans supported NATO's presence, compared with the one to five per cent who "positively don't like us."

He said the battle for Afghanistan can be won only if NATO persuades those in between -- the civilians "waiting to see which way it's going to go" -- to support the government instead of the Taliban...

He said the terrorists who used Afghanistan as a staging ground for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could just as easily have targeted Ottawa or Toronto, and might well strike on Canadian soil if the international community turns its back on Afghanistan now and leaves it for the insurgents...