BRUSSELS: Britain scolded its NATO allies Wednesday for not stepping forward to share combat duties in Afghanistan, warning that there could be no freeloaders in the fight against Taliban-led insurgents."An alliance worth its name must be one that shares the burden of membership equally amongst its members, because there can be no freeloading when it comes to collective security," British Defence Secretary John Hutton said."Volunteering, not waiting to be asked, must be the hallmark of a proper relationship between the transatlantic members of this alliance," he told ambassadors at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) headquarters in Brussels.NATO is embarked on its biggest and most-ambitious operation ever trying to spread the influence of the weak Afghan government across the strife-torn country and help foster reconstruction. But the Taliban and its cohorts, including al-Qaeda, drug lords and criminal gangs, have been waging an increasingly tenacious insurgency and seriously undermining NATO's goals.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments