Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Allies losing Afghanistan war, Australian minister warns: report

Allies losing Afghanistan war, Australian minister warns: report 
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's new government has warned NATO and its allies
they will lose the war against hardline Taliban forces in Afghanistan
unless they urgently change tactics, a report said Monday. 
The country's new Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon issued the stark
warning at a meeting in Edinburgh last week of eight nations engaged in
the conflict, including the United States, The Australian newspaper said.
The coalition of NATO and allied forces engaged in the conflict since 2001
must overhaul military and civil programmes aimed at fostering stability
in the troubled country if they are to win the conflict, he cautioned.
The minister's comments to the closed-door gathering were based on
classified intelligence assessments prepared for the previous Australian
government of John Howard which painted a bleak picture of the Afghan
conflict.
"The previous government would have us believe that good progress is being
made in Afghanistan. The reality is quite a different one," Fitzgibbon
told The Australian after returning from the meeting in Britain.
"We are winning the battles and not the war, in my view. We have been very
successful in clearing areas of the Taliban but it's having no real
strategic effect," he said.
Fitzgibbon also told the meeting in Edinburgh, attended by US Defence
Secretary Robert Gates, that while NATO and its allies had been
successfully "stomping on lots of ants, we have not been dealing with the
ants' nest".
"We need much more than a military response," he said. "This is largely
about winning the hearts and minds of the more moderate of the Taliban and
other sections of the Afghan community," he said.
Fitzgibbon took office two weeks ago after the new centre-left government
of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was sworn in following its sweeping election
victory against conservative Howard, whose government was closely allied
to Washington.
Rudd was elected on promises to withdraw Australia's combat troops from
Iraq but to continue the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan, where
Canberra has around 900 troops.
In Edinburgh last week, Fitzgibbon expressed frustration that some NATO
nations were failing to pull their weight in the fight against the
insurgency in southern Afghanistan, where the once vanquished Taliban are
resurgent.
"We have been frustrated about that for a long, long time," Fitzgibbon
said in the Scottish capital, ruling out any increase in Australian troop
numbers while some nations, which he did not name, were not pulling their
weight.
"We believe there is a lack of coherent strategy and, of course, we are
frustrated by the fact that some NATO nations, in our view, are not doing
enough or making a sufficient contribution to the campaign."
Australia's troop contingent in Afghanistan mostly assist a Dutch-led
reconstruction operation in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, a
former Taliban stronghold.
Meanwhile Afghan police said Monday that security forces supported by
international troops killed more than 20 Taliban insurgents during a hunt
for rebel hideouts in southern Afghanistan.
Nearly 10 other militants were injured and four detained during the
operation in southern Kandahar province's Zhirai district on Sunday, the
Kandahar police chief, Sayed Agha Saqeb told AFP.
"We and the coalition had a joint operation against Taliban in that area.
Yesterday (Sunday) we came in contact with the enemy and over 20 enemy
were killed," the police commander said.
He was referring to the US-led coalition force which has over 15,000
troops based in Kandahar mainly helping local security forces hunting
remnants of the Taliban who are waging a deadly insurgency. 
A separate force of over 40,000 Western troops operates in Afghanistan
under the command of the NATO's International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF). 
It was not possible to verify the police chief's figure independently and
officials from the Western military forces were not immediately available
for comment.
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 Am.
#_" Ne un uomo , ne un soldo"...Spero solo che di Italiani non ce ne siano a 
Musa Qala.
G. 

 ROTFL, zappona sui piedi Somarenko...
Mamma mia.
Tb
-- 
Libertą per i comunisti siriani in carcere: Fateh Jamus, 'Isam Dimashqi,
Basel Hurani, 'Abd al-Halim Rumieh, Ratib Sha'bu, and Doha 'Ashur
al-'Askari 
http://snipurl.com/1oqtm

 conflict.
#_E` una grossa soddisfazione costatare che qualcuno comincia a strofinarsi 
gli occhi e vedere le cose come esse sono. Una soluzione militare 
e`impensabile in quel paese e in quella sua struttura sociale. Solo la 
pazzia di una amministrazione come ora in USA poteva abortire un mostro come 
questo. IMO ho timore che la corda e`stata tirata troppo e ora ci vorranno 
magie alchemiche di politica per portare l'Afghanistan martoriato (e l'area 
circostante) alla stabilita`e alla pace.
Piuttosto ha portato ancora piu`instabilita`nell'area.
Ora  e`il caldrone pakistano che e`sotto grossa pressione e rischia di 
scoppiare.
Giano 

 a Musa Qala.
LOL, Giano. Invece di sperare, non fai prima a verificare su di una cartina 
dove sia Musa Qala e come sono distribuite le truppe NATO? Dieci secondi di 
Google e avresti la risposta. Do you know *caveat*?
-- 
"Il Basileus che siede a Costantinopoli vince sempre".
Giovanni Cecaumeno. 

 wrote in message
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quoto.


#_Ha parlato il Rommel della Garfagnana!
Da quando esistono "mappe" pubbliche colla disposizione dei contingenti in 
una situazione di guerra?
Allora si capisce perche`'ste truppe non riescono a chiappare altro che 
farfalle.
_Stavolta faremo tutto colla massima segretezza... ha annunciato alla BBC il 
liutenant gen.Richards.
La riesci a capire la discrepanza o te la devo spiegare 
meglio...barbagianni!
Giano 

 farfalle.
Da quando ogni primo ministro dei paesi NATO prega ogni giorno che i 
talebani non entrino nella zona di propria competenza, e si assicura che i 
propri soldati non ne escano. Le truppe di ogni nazionalità sono assegnate 
ad una zona ben precisa. E lo sapresti anche tu se ti fossi preso la briga 
di informarti. Non per niente al Sud combattono britannici e canadesi. 
Guarda dove sono le zone i questione...
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