U.S. Might Extend Tours of Troops in Afghanistan

By Robert Burns

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Tuesday he wants to extend the combat tours of 1,200 soldiers amid rising violence, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he was “strongly inclined” to recommend a troop increase to President Bush if commanders believe it is needed.

Gates also said Pakistan must act to stem an increasing flow of Taliban fighters into Afghanistan. U.S. military officials have cited new evidence that the Pakistani military, which has long- standing ties to the Taliban movement, has ignored the incursions.

The prospect of a troop increase in Afghanistan, at the same time Bush is ordering 21,500 additional troops into Iraq, raises questions about the military’s ability to sustain wars on two major fronts. About 24,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, the highest level since the war began in October 2001, according to Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the senior American commander here.

It also raises questions about the course of the war in Afghanistan, which the United States is increasingly handing off to NATO forces. Of the 31,000 troops here under NATO command, about 11,000 are American. The United States has an additional 12,000 or 13,000 to hunt down al-Qaida terrorists and to train the Afghan army.

The number of insurgent attacks has risen 300 percent since September, when the Pakistani government put into effect a peace arrangement with tribal leaders in the north Waziristan area, along Afghanistan’s eastern border, a U.S. military intelligence officer traveling with Gates told reporters. Because of the sensitivity of the matter, the officer discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.

Eikenberry told reporters he has recommended to the Pentagon that 1,200 soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, N.Y., which is about halfway through a scheduled four-month tour in eastern Afghanistan, be ordered to stay through the end of the year.

That battalion already is scheduled to deploy to Iraq later this year, an illustration of how the two wars have stretched U.S. forces.

Eikenberry, who is due to leave his post Sunday, said Taliban forces appear to be readying a spring offensive to focus mainly on southern Afghanistan, particularly in the city of Kandahar and other urban centers. He also said he believed the Taliban would make renewed efforts to “get inside Kabul” and to attack border posts held by NATO and Afghan forces.

Despite the Taliban’s resurgence, he said: “The enemy is not strong militarily. A lot of this has to do with the attempt” to persuade ordinary Afghans that the U.S.-backed government cannot deliver necessary services.

“Although it’s going to be a violent spring and I would expect that we’re going to have more violence into the summer, I’m absolutely confident that we’re going to be able to dominate.”

On his second overseas trip since taking over at the Pentagon last month, Gates was briefed on the problem of cross-border incursions by the Taliban and their use of havens in Pakistan to direct growing numbers of attacks across the border.

“The border area is a problem,” Gates told a news conference after meeting with President Hamid Karzai. “There are more attacks coming across the border, [and] there are al-Qaida networks operating on the Pakistani side of the border. And these are issues that we clearly will have to pursue with the Pakistani government.”

Karzai acknowledged the upswing in Taliban attacks and vowed to deal the Taliban a heavy blow.

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