UK commander in Afghan warning

05/10/2008| IslamWeb

Decisive military victory in Afghanistan is impossible and the Taliban may have to be part of a long-term solution for the country, a senior British commander in Afghanistan has said.

 

"We're not going to win this war," Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith was quoted as saying in a British newspaper, published on Sunday.

 

He also reportedly said a deal with the Taliban might be on the table.

 

"If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this,'' Carleton-Smith was quoted in the Sunday Times newspaper as saying.

 

Britain and its Nato allies are engaged in a fierce campaign against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, following the US invasion of the country in 2001, which toppled the Taliban government.

 

Carleton-Smith said foreign forces had "taken the sting out of the Taliban for 2008" but that it would be "unrealistic and probably incredible" to think that the multinational forces in Afghanistan could rid the country of armed groups.

 

'Destined to fail'

 

"We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency ... I don't think we should expect that when we go there won't be roaming bands of armed men in this part of the world," he was quoted as saying.

 

"The American strategy is destined to fail"

 

Sherard Cowper-Coles, British ambassador to Kabul, quoted by Le Canard Enchaine

 

Britain has about 7,800 troops in Afghanistan.

 

Some officials have voiced interest in trying to talk the Taliban into laying down their arms and joining the government.

 

But on Saturday, the British government denied a claim that the UK believes the military campaign in Afghanistan is doomed to failure, after a French newspaper reported that London's ambassador to Kabul had said foreign troops were adding to Afghanistan's problems by helping keep in place a failing government in Kabul.

 

France's weekly Le Canard Enchaine had published what it said was a leaked French diplomatic telegram recounting talks between Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador to Kabul, and a French official.

 

The newspaper quoted Cowper-Coles as saying that "the American strategy is destined to fail" and that Afghanistan might best be "governed by an acceptable dictator".

 

Leaked correspondence

 

The newspaper, a weekly publication known for its investigative stories, published excerpts of the telegram, including a passage that quoted the British ambassador as criticizing both US presidential candidates over pledges to send more troops to Afghanistan.

 

"It is the American presidential candidates who must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan," an extract of the telegram published by the newspaper quoted Cowper-Coles as saying.

 

The newspaper said it had obtained a copy of the two-page telegram, which it reported was sent from Kabul to Paris on September 2.

 

It said the telegram was written by Jean-Francois Fitou, France's deputy ambassador in Afghanistan, following his meeting with Cowper-Coles.

 

PHOTO CAPTION

 

British soldiers on top of their armored vehicle at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in August 2008.

 

Al-Jazeera