NATO could end rotating command in S. Afghanistan

WASHINGTON: NATO could change its rotating command of southern Afghanistan and give the role to a single country, amid concern that the current system is boosting the Taliban insurgency, NATO's top US general said Thursday.
 
"Everything is open," General Bantz Craddock told AFP when asked how command of the Taliban hotbed area, which currently alternates between Canada, Britain and the Netherlands, was likely to change.

Craddock said he received a letter from the commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, saying "it would be better if we had one country take lead as opposed to rotate."

ISAF includes 47,000 soldiers from 40 countries who work alongside a separate US-led coalition numbering about 20,000 and the Afghan security forces to defeat extremist violence.

Regional governors from Afghanistan warned earlier this week that failure by Western powers to coordinate their military deployment could ultimately play into the hands of the Taliban, because some countries had gained a reputation as softer targets while others were more aggressive.

Craddock said he would make a recommendation but the decision would be made in the political arena.

He added that "from a military perspective, unity of command does make a lot of sense ... on the other hand you want a full participation."

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month that he expects a significant addition of US forces in Afghanistan next year, though the Pentagon has stressed that such a move would depend on deep troop cuts in Iraq.

Nearly 70 percent of the foreign forces are based in southern and eastern Afghanistan where the violence is most deadly.

The Taliban was ousted for harboring Al-Qaeda leaders in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Currently, there are 158,000 US troops in Iraq. The United States has 34,000 troops in Afghanistan, 16,000 of whom are under ISAF.