Share this story!            

Outgoing US commander blames Pakistan for spike in Afghan attacks

* General McNeill says ‘greatest risk from collusion of indigenous insurgents, NWFP terrorists’
* Says Afghan spike ‘directly attributable to lack of pressure on other side of border’

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Attacks increased by 50 percent in April in Afghanistan’s eastern region, as a spreading Taliban insurgency in Pakistan fuelled a surge in violence, the outgoing US commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has claimed.

At a Pentagon news conference, Gen Dan K McNeill, who left Afghanistan on June 3 after 16 months of command in the country, said that stabilising Afghanistan would be impossible without a more robust military campaign against insurgents in Pakistan.

Collusion: “The greatest risk is the possibility of collusion between the insurgents who are indigenous to that region and the more intractable, the more extreme terrorists who are taking up residence there in the NWFP,” he said.

Increase: McNeill said that the 50 percent increase in attacks in eastern Afghanistan in April compared with the same month last year was “directly attributable to the lack of pressure on the other side of the border”.

“What’s missing is action to keep pressure on the insurgents,” he said. For example, Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has failed to agree to attend a meeting between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US in four months.

McNeill also criticised a US-funded program to train and equip Pakistan’s Frontier Corps (FC), questioning the effectiveness and loyalty of the tribally recruited guards.

Home | Main

Share this story!