• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Backgrounder: NATO Takes On Afghan Security

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Esther Pan, Staff Writer
July 27, 2006

Introduction

Afghanistan's shaky recovery is threatened by increasingly violent attacks from the Taliban, which is using Pakistan as a base to launch assaults against Afghanistan that have killed thousands of civilians in the last year. The Taliban's campaign has included using suicide bombers, planting roadside bombs, shooting civilians, and attacking police and security forces, all part of efforts to try to destabilize the nation and overthrow the democratically elected government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

What’s the current security situation in Afghanistan?

It is rapidly worsening. Taliban attacks have killed more than 2,000 people in the last year, prompting a recent counterattack mission by U.S.-led coalition forces that has killed more than 600 Taliban militants since the beginning of June. All this comes as NATO prepares to take over many security duties in southern Afghanistan from the United States at the end of July. The increasing violence makes the prospects for NATO's new mission even more troubled, experts say. "It's dicey," says Dennis Kux, a South Asia specialist and senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "[NATO's] stretched very thin in Afghanistan, the pressure from the Taliban is increasing, there are equipment shortages, and the United States is trying to get out. It's a real challenge for them to succeed," he says.

Which groups provide security?

Security, such as it is, in the country is provided by three groups: the U.S.-led coalition forces under the Combined Forces Command, the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and the Afghan security services. ISAF was originally meant to help the Karzai government establish order and maintain security in the Kabul area, but it slowly expanded its mandate as unrest spread in the country, particularly in the east and south.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.