A senior British military commander says roads in Afghanistan were safer when the Taliban ran the country. Maj. Gen. Nick Carter told the BBC Thursday that before the 2001 invasion, women could travel alone in the southern part of Afghanistan. He says “you could put your daughter on a bus in Kabul sure in the knowledge that she would get in one piece to Kandahar.” Carter, who controls NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, says this isn't the case now. He says British forces need to change that. Carter says the operation is shifting its emphasis to ensuring public safety – rather than fighting insurgents. He says forces will protect the population where they live, and ensure freedom of movement on key roads. Meanwhile, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan said Thursday that US President Barack Obama's troop surge should start turning the tide of war by mid-2010 as Italy revealed it would send up to 1,500 reinforcements. After senior US officials said a timeline for troops to start leaving was not set in stone, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said Obama's new war strategy would enable more troops to target Taliban strongholds. Following Obama's announcement Tuesday that he would send 30,000 more troops to combat, NATO foreign ministers gathered in Brussels to consider the US president's appeal for them to beef up the mission further. So far only Britain has committed extra troops, pledging to send another 500 to join a 9,500 contingent that is already the second largest in the 113,000-strong coalition. But a source in Italy's Defense Ministry said Rome would send between 500 and 1,500 reinforcements in 2010. Lawmakers in Germany, which has the third largest contingent of foreign troops in Afghanistan, were to debate extending the unpopular mission. NATO's foreign ministers gathered in Brussels for a two-day meeting which is to focus Friday on Afghanistan after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's arrival. McChrystal, in command of both US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, had been pushing for 40,000 troops to join the war against the Taliban militia and their Al-Qaeda allies, now in its ninth year. Taliban vow to increase attacks Obama's plan to send 30,000 new US troops to Afghanistan will only lead to more American casualties, the Taliban vowed. The insurgency said in a statement Wednesday that the Obama administration's plan was “no solution for the problems of Afghanistan” and would give the Taliban an opportunity “to increase their attacks and shake the American economy, which is already facing crisis.” “This stratagem will not pay off,” the Taliban statement said, adding that the surge will result in increased deaths of US troops.
