US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told troops in Afghanistan yesterday that the decade-long war was at "a turning point", as Kabul reacted with fury to a Nato air strike that killed up to 18 civilians.
Panetta arrived in the Afghan capital on his second visit in less than three months as President Hamid Karzai branded Wednesday's air strike on a home in Logar province "unacceptable" and cut short a visit to China.
The United States, which leads 130,000 Nato troops fighting a Taliban insurgency, is planning to withdraw the bulk of combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and hand responsibility for security to the Afghans.
Panetta noted a recent "uptick" in violence and said a double suicide attack on Wednesday outside the largest Nato base in the south that killed 23 people was "much more organised than we've seen before".
But the US defence chief sought to reassure soldiers that their sacrifices had not been in vain and Afghans that Nato's drawdown did not mean they would be abandoned.
Meanwhile, India's External Affairs Minister SM Krishna yesterday said it backed the six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) security grouping to play a greater role in Afghanistan, and expressed its interest to coordinate more closely with the group in combating terrorism in the region.
He, in an address to the SCO Summit, described the situation in Afghanistan as “the most important security challenge we face today.”
On Wednesday, Chinese President Hu Jintao lent his backing to the group to play a bigger role in the country in the lead-up to the withdrawal of Nato forces by 2014.
Panetta, who was in India on Wednesday, urged India to play a bigger role in Afghanistan after the scheduled Nato troops pullout in 2014.
Noting the end of the US war in Iraq, Panetta told soldiers gathered at the heavily fortified Kabul airport that "hopefully we'll be able to accomplish the mission in Afghanistan as well".
He said the Taliban had been "weakened", but noted a recent "uptick" in violence, saying: "The reason for that is we've taken the battle to them."
Panetta is also due to meet Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak with the US-led International Security Assistance Force investigating reports that civilians were killed in an air raid on a home in Logar province.
"Attacks by Nato that cause life and property losses to civilians under no circumstances could be justified and are not acceptable," Karzai said of the attack in a statement that announced he was cutting short a visit to China.
Panetta's trip to Kabul comes at the end of a nine-day tour through Asia, including stops in Singapore, Vietnam and India, but significantly not Pakistan.
Source: The Daily Star, 08 June 2012
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