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When NATO takes over the forests and mountains of eastern Afghanistan from the US-led coalition, it will find itself in the heartland of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
But NATO says the expansion to the east is mainly of symbolic importance, as it means the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will assume command of foreign troops across the country.
The force, which will swell to 33,000 soldiers with the move, will also not be hunting down Bin Laden himself, leaving that task to the remainder of the US-led coalition that ousted the Taliban five years ago.
“This is the most significant mission in NATO's recent history,” said Mark Laity, NATO's spokesman in Kabul, referring to the overall takeover of command for Afghanistan by ISAF.
“But in practical terms it doesn't have as much impact as going (to the Taliban-plagued) south. The east is probably not as challenging as the south but it is still a full-fledged combat mission.”
ISAF was formed in 2001 after the Taliban fell and came under NATO control in 2003.
It currently has 21,000 troops from 37 countries under its command working in the north, west and south of Afghanistan. On Thursday it will absorb around 12,000 of the 20,000 US-led coalition soldiers in the east.
The remaining 8,000 US troops from the east will remain under coalition command and be used for counterterror, training and aircraft support duties.
“The counter-terrorism mission will remain with the US-led coalition,” Laity said when asked if NATO forces would now be trying to track Bin Laden. “The forces that come over to us will be counterinsurgency.”
NATO has been promoting a dual strategy of counterinsurgency and subsequent reconstruction to win “hearts and minds”, while the coalition has focused on what officials call counterterror — essentially chasing Bin Laden.
However the alliance had a baptism of fire when it took over from the US in the Taliban-infested south on July 31. Since then it has lost 32 soldiers to hostile action, as well as 14 in the crash of a British plane.
The alliance says it also killed around 1,000 militants in a major operation in southern Kandahar province. Troops in the south are mostly Canadian, British, Dutch and American.
Operations in the mountainous and heavily forested eastern parts will likely be different from the largely desert south, partly because the “personalities will change”, said Laity.
Instead of purely Taliban rebels, in the east NATO expects also to encounter fighters from the Hezb-e-Islami group of Afghan warlord and former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
The troops themselves in the east will still be Americans, with no likely redeployment from other nations, NATO says. Thursday's expansion covers the provinces of Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Nangarhar, Paktia, Paktika and Khost.
Eastern Afghanistan was where Al-Qaeda had its key bases and training camps before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the subsequent fall of the Taliban regime which sheltered the organisation.
Bin Laden was last seen at Tora Bora, on the eastern border with Pakistan.
“Al Qaeda has more influence in this region,” said Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Zahir Azimi.
“But there is a better situation in the east than in the south in terms of security.”
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said in his memoirs published last week that he believed Bin Laden's most likely hiding place was in Afghanistan's Kunar province. Officials in the area rejected the claim.
“I know every place of this province, I've fought Taliban and Al-Qaeda in every corner of this province, I know this region more than anyone else,” said Malak Zarin, an influential tribal chief in Asadabdad, the capital of Kunar.
“I can tell you with confidence Osama or any other Al-Qaeda chief is not in Kunar.”
He said Bin Laden was more likely to be in Pakistan's remote northwestern Chitral region, which borders Kunar and Afghanistan's eastern Nuristan province.
Kunar police chief Abdul Jalal said Musharraf was trying to mislead Western countries. “There might be some insurgents or Al-Qaeda operatives here in Kunar but no Osama himself,” he said.
