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| Afghanistan |
| Australian troops face threat in Afghanistan |
| 2006-03-28 |
| AUSTRALIAN troops heading for Afghanistan later this year will face one of the most hostile environments yet because of a growing insurgency by Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, a report has warned. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said the 200 members of the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) heading for the Oruzgan province of south-central Afghanistan could encounter attacks by the insurgents, plus suicide and roadside bombings. ASPI analyst Dr Elsina Wainwright warned in the report released today that there would be considerable risk. "This PRT deployment is altogether different from Australia's involvement in Afghanistan until now and it is one of most serious threat environments into which Australian non-Special Forces personnel have been deployed in recent years,'' she said. "Australian troops will face an insurgency that could target international forces and there could be Australian casualties.'' Australia has a special forces task group comprising 300 Special Air Service Regiment, Commando and support troops in Oruzgan province, an area of considerable anti-government activity. The Australian PRT, one of almost two dozen international PRTs working on reconstruction tasks throughout Afghanistan, will operate in the same province with a combined Dutch PRT and task group numbering some 1400. The mission comes as the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) expands into Afghanistan's south, an area previously only lightly touched by coalition forces or the central government. Dr Wainwright said the Australian PRT would have to deal with a conservative Pashtun population traditionally resentful of outside influences. She said the insurgency remained a complex mix of Taliban remnants, some Pashtun tribesmen alongside al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters, some based in the Pakistan frontier provinces. Insurgent activity has substantially increased over the past year with a fourfold increase in suicide attacks, doubling of use of improvised explosive devices and greater concentration on soft targets. Dr Wainwright said successful US-led counterinsurgency operations seemed in part to have caused the insurgency's recent change in tactics, adopted from the Iraq insurgency. She said the Dutch-Australian PRT would need a significant security emphasis. "More robust mandates, rules of engagement and equipment will be required than in the north and west,'' she said. "The PRT deployment also presents Australia with a number of operational challenges. "Australian troops have not in the past been closely interoperable with Dutch forces and will likely be working more closely with them than with the Japanese in Al Muthanna in Iraq.'' ``It will be essential for the Netherlands to have very robust rules of engagement to meet Australian needs. This will require tough decisions of the Dutch government.'' Dr Wainwright said all Dutch parliamentarians well remembered Srebrenica in Bosnia where Dutch peacekeepers with a limited mandate evacuated in the face of a Bosnian Serb advance, resulting in the massacre of 8000 Muslim men and boys. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 Some of the world's most tenacious warriors. God speed, mate! |
| Posted by: Crap 2006-03-28 23:56 |
| #1 Thank you Diggers! Go get em mates! |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-03-28 14:25 |