Kabul: The US-led military alliance is considering moving more forces to eastern Afghanistan to protect Kabul from Pakistan-based insurgents, the coalition’s new commander has said.
“My sense is that there will be additional combat forces sent into the east, some number of battalions,” the Wall Street Journal quoted US Marine General John Allen as saying.
“We’ll also be strengthening the defense in the east to provide a buffer between the Pakistani border and Kabul…to dominate the enemy’s avenues of approach to the Kabul security zone,” he added.
Last year’s surge of 30,000 additional troops, ordered by US President Barack Obama, focused mostly on the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where several formerly insurgent-held districts have become much more secure.
General Allen said he has not yet decided whether or not to formally declare the mountainous eastern provinces between Pakistan and Kabul as the coalition’s “main effort” in the next fighting season.
“The main effort now is protecting the population in the south,” Gen. Allen said. “My intent next year is to consolidate our holdings in the south. With the combat power we have, we’ll put special emphasis in the east in 2012,” he added.
Despite the fact that the US is trying to pull out forces from Afghanistan, General Allen said that he intends to keep as much firepower in place as possible for next year’s battles. He said that the time had come for India to review its expansionist policy, accept the ground realities and resolve the dispute over Kashmir, once and for all.
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