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British commander warns of surge in violence in Afghanistan

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Sept 16, IRNA -- The British commander of 30,000 foreign troops in Kandahar has warned that he expected a surge in violence by Taliban-led insurgents ahead of Saturday's parliamentary elections in Afghanistan.

'We have already seen a pattern of intimidation,' Major General Nick Carter said.

'There will be a good deal of violence because the insurgency will want to prevent people from voting.'

Though the number of US troops and Afghan national army and police forces had increased significantly over the past few months, 'our sense is that it is too early to predict which way this will go,' Carter added.

Earlier this month, Britain’s most senior commander in Afghanistan also warned that violence would increase in Afghanistan, noting that progress against the Taliban had been 'hard, slow and variable.'

'We are going up the hill into the enemy at the moment,' Lt Gen Sir Nick Parker said.

'This is a complex counter-insurgency. There are a large number of different actors and it is a resilient enemy,” he told the BBC.

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary William Hague admitted that the political reconciliation in Afghanistan had so far not produced results, but suggested it was still early.

“The reintegration programme has just begun and the opportunity for political reconciliation now exists. It would be quite wrong to judge the possible outcome of that process from what has happened in just the last few weeks,” Hague said.

In a video link to journalists in London on Wednesday, Carter spoke of international forces undertaking a series of 'proactive operations' against insurgents, but gave a bleak assessment.

'I am not, and never have been from my time in Afghanistan, optimistic. The reality is that the insurgency will have a go on election day. I just hope they don't do as well as they did last year', he warned.

The commander compared Kandahar to Moscow in the 1990s, with 'mobs, mafia and protection rackets' as well as the Taliban. The police were loyal to powerful individuals rather than to the Afghan state, he said.

Afghan forces had to 'wrestle with the influence of power brokers', he said but expected that by Christmas 'much of the population' in Kandahar city and the surrounding districts of Arghandab, Zharay, and Panjwai, would be protected by Afghan security forces backed up by Nato-led troops.