Afghanistan summit to plan for withdrawal

Gordon Brown sets out benchmarks for Kabul government to take control of disputed territory

Guardian.co.uk

Nicholas Watt and Mark Townsend, The Observer, Sunday 29 November 2009

Article history

A British Gurkha in Helmand. Photograph: Steve Lewis/Reuters

A lengthy withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan will start unfolding towards the end of next year under plans to be agreed by allied powers at a conference in London in January.

Days before President Barack Obama outlines his new military and political strategy for the country, Gordon Brown set out detailed benchmarks that would ensure Afghan forces can eventually assume control.

This week, Obama is expected to endorse the central thrust – although not necessarily the exact findings – of General Stanley McChrystal's landmark report. The US commander in Afghanistan is calling for a more sophisticated strategy, involving a surge of around 35,000 extra troops, designed to pave the way for a future withdrawal of American forces.

Brown, who was speaking at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, was more cautious than the White House, which said last week that Obama's announcement would herald the eventual withdrawal of troops.

But the prime minister set out five benchmarks – the last of which would pave the way for a lengthy process of withdrawal to begin – that the Afghan government will be asked to meet at the conference in London on 28 January:

• Within three months Kabul must identify additional troops to send to Helmand province for training. So far this year, 98 British soldiers have been killed in the province, the heaviest annual death toll since the conflict began eight years ago. Brown said: "This is part of our idea that we will build up the Afghan army by nearly 50,000 [from 90,000] over the course of the next year."
  
  
• Within six months there must be clear plans for police training.
  
  
• Within nine months President Hamid Karzai must have appointed almost 400 provincial and district governors.
  
  
• Within 12 months 5,000 additional Afghan troops will be trained by Britain in Helmand and thousands more in other parts of the country.
  
  
• By the end of 2010 Afghan security forces must be taking the lead in five out of the country's 34 provinces. Control in one or two districts in Helmand will also be handed over.

Brown stressed that the conference, which is expected to be attended by Karzai, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and foreign ministers of the other 42 countries involved in Afghanistan, would not set a timetable for withdrawal. But he indicated that the process of "Afghanisation", whereby local troops and police assume control, would allow international troops to begin to leave.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that British officials are pushing for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban leadership, including Mullah Omar, founder of the Afghan Taliban, as part of an eventual exit strategy.

Major General Richard Barrons said negotiations with the senior echelons of the Afghan Taliban leadership council – the Quetta shura – were being looked at, alongside the reintegration of insurgency fighters into civilian life.

In his first interview since arriving in Afghanistan to begin talks with "moderate" Taliban fighters, Barrons said British officials were backing extensive talks between Karzai's government and the Quetta shura, which is led by Mullah Omar and is responsible for directing much of the fighting against British forces in Helmand province.

The disclosure is the first admission that the government is prepared to accept deals with the enemy. Until now, officials and the military have resisted talking about support for a strategic reconciliation between the Quetta shura and Afghan authorities for fear of accusations that they have made deals with Taliban commanders.

Barrons, considered one of the most authoritative voices on the coalition's counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, said a new line was being pursued after the start of Karzai's second term.

"There will be political reconciliation, with senior levels of the Afghan government reaching out to the senior levels of the insurgency in all its many forms, and below that a more technocratic level, where we need ways – at a provincial, district, local and tribal level – to get insurgents to reintegrate," he said.

According to Barrons, signs were emerging that Taliban leaders from the Quetta shura were increasingly partial to reconciliation talks. He said: "We sense that there is a widespread discussion across Afghanistan and across the border [Pakistan] concerning what are the prospects for reconciliation and reintegration, and we are tracking those signs and assessing with the Afghan government how these things can be taken forward. We sense there are real opportunities to be grasped."

Barrons believes that if the plans were implemented alongside McChrystal's recommendations, Afghanistan would seem a "much happier place" in as little as three years.

U.S. President Barack Obama has briefed top officials including his senior military commander on details of his new strategy for Afghanistan, expected to include extra troops. (CNN)

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