Интересная статейка АП о том, что США будут посылать свои войска для участия в межклановых разборках между афганскими командырами. Разумеется пока только в роли военных "советников." Медленно но уверенно США повторяют старые ошибки и погрязают в афганском песке.
"А как хорошо начиналось: вызывают в Москву! И как скверно кончилось: самодеятельность..." (c) Ильин.
А какая реальная раскладка сил в Афгане? Кого собираются поддерживать амы? Кто так досаждает Карзаю, что появилась нужда в "советниках"?
Venik
U.S. May Help Deter Afghan Warlords
Mon Feb 25, 5:58 AM ET
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The United States may use military advisers to deter rival Afghan warlords from plunging the country back into civil war, a U.S. special envoy said.
Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said maintaining order is Afghanistan's main challenge since the power of Afghanistan's interim administration is limited and the establishment of a well-trained national army is months away.
"There is a danger of multiple armies going to war," Khalilzad said.
The United States could send military advisers into conflict areas or use U.S. special forces already in place to act as advisers, Khalilzad said.
The goal is to keep militias apart until a viable Afghan army can be established, Khalilzad said. That is a difficult task because warlords who hold sway across much of the countryside outside Kabul may be reluctant to turn over their armed men to a single command.
In the deadliest factional fighting since the defeat of the ruling Taliban last fall, scores of Afghans were killed in January when rival militias battled for control of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan. U.S. troops were not involved.
Rival factions struggling for control over Mazar-e-Sharif, the largest city in the north, have withdrawn their forces outside city limits under a tentative agreement reached this month, but they remain armed and the situation is unsettled.
Some international officials have discussed expanding the international peacekeeping force as a way to improve security.
While the United States has offered to help Afghanistan build a national army, it is not participating in the peacekeeping force and Khalilzad said it would not pledge soldiers to an enlarged one.
U.S. officials say the job of American troops in Afghanistan is fighting terrorism — by hunting Taliban and al-Qaida members — and not peacekeeping or nation building.
"We don't want Afghanistan to become a security welfare state," Khalilzad said. "We want Afghanistan to be answerable to a single army."
Because the interim government has limited control, "We need to come up with an answer and relatively soon," he said.
Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai repeatedly has called for a larger peacekeeping force that would deploy outside Kabul, but he has received no commitments. The 4,500-member British-led force is currently limited to the capital.
Some Afghans say the United States has strengthened several of the warlords whose help it needs to track down remaining Taliban and al-Qaida forces. Khalilzad would not comment on whether the United States has given money to warlords in exchange for help in the campaign against terrorism.
On Saturday, Karzai told Khalilzad the United States must make certain that warlords it works with understand they must be subordinate to the central government.
In other developments related to the U.S.-led mission:
_ U.S. Navy surgeons performed successful major operations on two men being held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, military officials there said Sunday. One man had thoracic surgery Saturday to treat an infection in his chest and another had an abscess removed from his spinal column Friday. Both men, in their 20s, also were treated for tuberculosis.
The man with the abscess would have died without the surgery, said operating neurosurgeon Lt. Cmdr. Edison McDaniels, based in Portsmouth, Va.
_ U.S. military officials said Sunday that two rockets were fired the night before at the U.S. base in Kandahar. No one was injured by the missiles, which landed about a mile from the airfield. Two vehicles were seen leaving the launch site, but Afghan military forces that followed them quickly lost contact.
_ German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping said German special forces are in Afghanistan helping U.S. troops hunt down al-Qaida fighters.
_ Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on ABC's "This Week" that the United States does not know what happened to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but "the odds are he probably is alive."
