German Troops Face Decade in Afghanistan

[Batgirl]

German soldiers will have to stay in Afghanistan at least for another 10 years, their commanding officer told a German newspaper to be published on Oct. 7.

“For the German Army, Afghanistan will have a time limit, but it will be at least ten years,” Gen. Hans-Christoph Ammon told Die Welt newspaper, according to an advance excerpt.

With up to 2,200 troops, Germany contributes 20 percent of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that is helping to rebuild the country.

German soldiers are based in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and with so-called provincial reconstruction teams in and around the northern cities of Kunduz and Faizabad.

The German parliament agreed last month to extend the troops’ mandate by another year and said it hoped to raise their number to 3,000.

That was in line with NATO’s announcement on Oct. 6 that it will boost the ISAF force to 15,000, expanding into the volatile southern part of the country.

Ammon said he hoped the increased troop numbers would give his soldiers more freedom to move around the country and would allow him to reinforce the German presence in Faizabad and deploy troops in Mazar-i-Sharif in the north.

The first elections in Afghanistan for more than three decades were scarred by violence last month after the ousted hardline Taliban regime attempted to disrupt voting.

Defense News