News
12-06-2009
Somalia: Piracy
SLOBODAN LEKIC — NATO will keep a counter-piracy flotilla off the Horn of Africa, where international patrols have been key to preventing attacks in one of the world's busiest sea lanes, the alliance's top official said Friday.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also said that the alliance would send eight extra infantry battalions — numbering 8,000-10,000 troops — to help secure the presidential elections in Afghanistan on Aug. 20.
He was speaking at the conclusion of a two-day annual meeting of defense ministers from 28 member states and 22 partner nations which endorsed a plan to restructure the NATO command in Kabul to cope with the increasing numbers of troops flowing into the region.
De Hoop Scheffer said a new NATO flotilla would replace the task force sailing home at the end of the month.
"NATO will continue to play its role in the fight against piracy," he said.
A NATO flotilla has been stationed off Somalia since November. It was joined by an EU squadron, a U.S.-led task force, and ships from China, India, Malaysia and Russia. Their main task is to escort World Food Program vessels carrying food aid to Somalia.
De Hoop Scheffer said the eight new battalions will help with electoral activities such as transporting election materials and protecting election observers, de Hoop Scheffer said. They will be withdrawn afterward.
The alliance has nearly doubled its force in Afghanistan — known as ISAF — in the past year to about 60,000 troops. At least 21,000 more U.S. soldiers deployed by the Obama administration recently started arriving. Casualties suffered by the international troops in the first five months of this year were about 60 percent higher than in the same period of 2008.
The new command structure will include two new intermediate headquarters as part of the international command in Kabul to handle day-to-day tactical operations and to oversee the training of Afghanistan's army and police.
This will free up the new commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to focus on strategy and "greater engagement with other actors both in Afghanistan and the region," alliance spokesman James Appathurai said.
McChrystal attended the ministerial meeting Friday before flying to Kabul to take up his command. "I assure you that I take the responsibility very, very seriously," he told the ministers.
Ministers also approved a proposal to send three or four AWACS airborne radar planes to Afghanistan to provide air traffic control for the increasing numbers of military jets and helicopters arriving in the theater of operations.
On Thursday, ministers decided to cut NATO's peacekeeping force in Kosovo from 15,000 to 10,000 troops in keeping with the improving security situation in that newly independent nation. NATO originally deployed 50,000 troops to Kosovo when it assumed control of the province following the brief war with Serbia in 1999.
