Word: afghanistans
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...afternoon, a key ally of Berlusconi's, Northern League chief Umberto Bossi, was declaring that "the mission in Afghanistan has reached its end" and calling for Italy's troops to be brought home by Christmas. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, a die-hard Berlusconi loyalist, said Friday there are no immediate plans for a pullout but expressed serious doubts about the situation in Afghanistan. "Much has to change," Frattini told the daily Corriere della Sera. "There needs to be ... more attention on the people who suffer and on reconstruction. The general vision of the mission must be changed." Frattini wants more...
...Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters late Thursday, Sept. 17, "We must bring our boys home [from Afghanistan] as soon as possible." Speaking at a European Union summit in Brussels, he cautioned that there was no fixed timetable for the pullout of the 3,100-strong contingent and that any withdrawal must be worked out with the other NATO allies present in Afghanistan. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...
...over Parliament and his center-right coalition. As the first reports of the Thursday-morning bombing - which also killed 10 Afghan civilians - at an outdoor market in Kabul came in, the Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs both forcefully declared Italy's resolve to maintain its military presence in Afghanistan in the face of what Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa called a "cowardly" and "devious" attack...
...columnist and former Italian ambassador to NATO, says Frattini's concerns echo those expressed in the halls of power across continental Europe. "He's saying what almost all European leaders are saying, either privately or publicly," Romano tells TIME. "There is a rather widespread idea that [the mission in Afghanistan] is not leading anywhere...
...numbers over the summer, European troop deaths have been creeping upward, provoking hard questions about the exact nature and objectives of the mission from London to Berlin. "The public doesn't really understand what we are doing there," says Romano. (See pictures of the U.S. Marines' new offensive in Afghanistan...