Word: nato
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Dutch government's collapse comes less than three months after U.S. President Barack Obama appealed to NATO allies to boost their Afghanistan troop numbers as part of a surge in the central Asian country. NATO asked this month for the Dutch mission to be extended beyond 2010. But Balkenende's coalition partners in the center-left Labor Party had already secured a pledge from the coalition's main party, the Christian Democrats, to pull troops out this year. Despite Balkenende's pleas, the Labor Party refused to reconsider. "A plan was agreed when our soldiers went to Afghanistan," said Labor...
...face a security threat as severe as the threats in Helmand and Kandahar, it is still volatile: 21 Dutch soldiers have been killed since the mission was first deployed in 2006. The deployment was initially scheduled to end in 2008 but was extended by two years because no other NATO member state offered a replacement. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...
...many have dragged their feet over Obama's appeals for more troops to join the surge. "Counterinsurgency is also about perceptions," says Nick Grono, deputy president for operations at the International Crisis Group in Brussels. "The Dutch decision creates an impression among both allies and insurgents and makes the NATO effort just a little bit more difficult. It raises questions about other countries thinking about their commitments. At the same time, the Taliban has an effective propaganda effort, and they will play it up as a lack of international resolve...
Balkenende is also worried that the move could damage Dutch influence in groups like NATO and even lose its hard-earned seat at G-20 meetings. Those fears are echoed among analysts. "Our engagement has given us global access," says Christa Meindersma, deputy director of the Hague Center for Strategic Studies. "But that will change now. This decision will make us a less reliable partner for international endeavors." (Watch a video of tourists beer-biking in Amsterdam...
...Pakistanis were anxious to catch Mauawia for other reasons too. Pakistani intelligence officials told the local press that he was chief of operations for the Pakistani Taliban, which views Islamabad as great an enemy as the NATO troops in Afghanistan and has staged dozens of suicide bombings in major Pakistani cities and towns, killing hundreds. Pakistani security forces also arrested two senior Taliban commanders in charge of operations in the northern Afghan provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan. The Kunduz commander, Mullah Abdul Salam, was captured far from the Afghan border, in the central Punjabi town of Faisalabad. And according...