After 12 years, NATO passes security responsibility to Afghan forces

The formal transfer of Afghan forces into the lead of the fight in Afghanistan is raising questions about whether they're prepared to fight on their own.

|
Rahmat Gul/AP
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, left, shakes hands with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen during a ceremony at a military academy on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday. Karzai announced at the ceremony on Tuesday that his country's armed forces are taking over the lead for security nationwide from the US-led NATO coalition.

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

NATO troops in Afghanistan officially passed security responsibility to national forces at a ceremony in Kabul today, marking an important transition in the country’s 12-year war.

“Today is a historic day for Afghanistan,” President Hamid Karzai said, standing alongside NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The transition began in July 2011, followed by three subsequent rounds of provincial handoffs, reports Reuters.

“[NATO] will no longer plan, execute or lead combat operations," Mr. Rasmussen said, referring to the nearly 97,000 troops from NATO countries still stationed in Afghanistan. “By the end of 2014 our combat mission will be complete.” Until then, international troops will continue in a support role, providing training, intelligence, and ground forces as needed, reports the BBC.

Many at home and abroad harbor doubts that Afghan forces are prepared for the myriad security challenges that still exist. A December Pentagon report noted that “just one of the Afghan National Army's 23 brigades is capable of operating on its own without NATO support,” reports Foreign Policy. The transition has placed an outsized burden on Afghan troops, according to Reuters: “In one year, the Afghan state has lost more troops than NATO has across the entire war.”

Issues of insufficient training and low morale plague the 350,000-strong Afghan national army, according to the Los Angeles Times:

[The Army] isn’t ready, but is nevertheless being pushed into a commanding role by NATO members keen to withdraw their combat troops by late 2014 and end the high costs and body count of a protracted conflict.

Just 90 minutes before today’s ceremony in Kabul a bomb exploded killing three civilians and wounding at least 21 others, reports CNN. The bombing targeted parliamentarian Mohammad Mohaqiq, a senior member of the Afghan peace council. Mr. Mohaqiq survived the attack. 

Just last week the Taliban launched an attack on the Kabul airport, where NATO has an base. According to the LA Times, today’s bombing was the fifth high-profile attack in Kabul in a month and a half.

The Taliban said it would target foreign troops, UN officials and Afghans working with international forces at the start of its spring offensive, a time when warmer weather generally brings more intense fighting.

Proving that Afghan troops are capable of tamping down Taliban violence is an immediate goal, but a full peace agreement was high on the mind today as the Taliban is expected to open a political office in Qatar. President Karzai announced he would send a team of peace negotiators from a council formed in 2010 to the Gulf state, reports Bloomberg.

An Afghan diplomatic source told Reuters that the Taliban would open an office in Qatar as early as today. "This will help start the peace talks again," the unnamed source said. Reuters reports:

Karzai said three principles had been created to guide the talks - that having begun in Qatar, they must then immediately be moved to Afghanistan, that they bring about an end to violence and that they must not become a tool for a "third country's" exploitation of Afghanistan.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to After 12 years, NATO passes security responsibility to Afghan forces
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/terrorism-security/2013/0618/After-12-years-NATO-passes-security-responsibility-to-Afghan-forces
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe