Kabul - General David McKiernan, top US commander in Afghanistan said on Sunday that that alliance was not losing the war against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and called on troop-contributing countries to send more soldiers and military gear in order to reach success quicker. The comment by McKiernan, who commands NATO forces in country, came amid concerns by other NATO officials, who warned of failure in the fight against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda associates in Afghanistan.
Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith of the British command in Afghanistan had said earlier this month, "We are not going to win this war" and said "It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army."
"I absolutely reject that idea, and I don't believe it," McKiernan told a news conference in the capital Kabul, but admitted that there were problems before the Afghan government and the alliance that served as obstacles to ending the lingering insurgency.
"It is true that in many places in this country, we don't have an acceptable level of security. We don't have good governance. We don't have socio-economic progress, and we don't have schools being opened up, but we are not losing in Afghanistan," the US general said.
There are around 70,000 international troops in Afghanistan, almost half of them US soldiers, while more than 150,000 Afghan police and army forces are also fighting Taliban militants, who have waged a bloody insurgency following their ouster from power in late 2001.
McKiernan also called on the 40-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to send more troops and military gear to contain the insurgency in the country.
"We have insufficient security forces to adequately provide for the security of the people of Afghanistan," he said, adding that until the Afghan security forces could stand on its own feet, the will of the international community to provide military capability remained "paramount" to the future of the war-torn country.
Taliban militants, who turned the Afghanistan's southern and eastern provinces into their main hotbed in the fight against Afghan and allied forces, began recently to edge closer to Kabul, posing a threat to the steering seat of the Western-backed government.
