Berlin/Brussels - The resignation Thursday of Germany's top military officer over an airstrike in Kunduz encapsulates many of the difficulties that NATO's European allies face in Afghanistan. General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the military's chief of staff, and State Secretary of Defence Peter Wichert both resigned over the September 4 bombing raid in German-controlled northern Afghanistan, which left nearly 150 people dead, among them many innocent bystanders.
Carried out by the US air force, acting on the orders of German Colonel Georg Klein, the airstrike targeted two fuel tankers hijacked by suspected Taliban insurgents.
Its civilian death toll not only caused outrage in Germany, where most people already oppose the mission, it also infuriated NATO commanders eager to win Afghan hearts and minds.
The resignations now appear to have as much to do with an alleged cover up by the German government, with Social Democratic opposition leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier saying information about the incident had been "systematically withheld" from parliament.
But it was their timing that was all the more embarassing.
The announcements not only came as parliament was debating whether to extend Germany's involvement in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, they also made international headlines just as the alliance's new leader, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was making an official visit to Berlin.
After his talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the NATO secretary general once again urged Germany and fellow European nations to commit more troops, trainers and resources to the alliance's hitherto unsuccessful bid to silence the Taliban insurgency.
"It is of utmost importance that an American announcement of increased troop numbers is followed by additional troop contributions from other allies," Rasmussen said.
His comments came as US President Barack Obama prepared to respond to military requests for an additional 40,000 troops, of which a quarter should come from outside the US, according to reports in Washington.
But the Kunduz scandal now threatens to complicate matters by weakening further the already frail support among ordinary Germans for ISAF, to which Berlin is contributing with 4,500 German soldiers.
"The signs are that the US president will decide in the next few days to send thousands of more troops. If that happens, European Union member states will also have to send more troops," says Timo Noetzel, an Afghanistan expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.
"And since the Netherlands and Canada have already decided to end their engagement in Afghanistan, it comes down to a few continental European nations, and Germany is one of them," Noetzel told the German Press Agency dpa.
According to Noetzel, it is now up to the German government and defence minister to "make a credible case" for sending more troops to the Hindu Kush.
In Berlin, Merkel would not be drawn on whether or not Germany would agree to such a troop increase, but did sound broadly positive.
"We are about to enter into a new stage in our commitment" to Afghanistan, Merkel said, adding that "Germany is aware of the reponsibility it has."
Germany is not alone in facing opposition to ISAF, of course.
Apart from the Dutch pull-out, Italy remains a relatively reluctant partner, while public support for an early withdrawal is now at around 70 per cent in Britain, the second-largest ISAF contributor after the US.
The Kunduz incident also reflects another major problem facing ISAF - lack of coordination among its 71,000 soldiers, who come from 43 contributing nations.
According to German magazine Der Spiegel, the German colonel who ordered the airstrike apparently gave the wrong information to the US pilots who carried out the attack. He also neglected to warn people on the ground, in violation of NATO procedures which seek to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible.
Lack of coordination is also a major problem when it comes to cracking down on the Taliban's use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Assembled with readily available materials such as fertilizers, these homemade roadside bombs are responsible for roughly 70 per cent of ISAF casualties, according to NATO officials.
But commanders on the ground complain that national contingents do not systematically share vital intelligence and forensic evidence about such bombs with each other, making it all the more difficult for NATO to crack down on their makers.
The coming week will be crucial for NATO's future in Afghanistan.
Once Obama announces his new Afghan strategy on Tuesday, it will be discussed both by NATO's top military guns and by its foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
Any lessons from Kunduz will have to be considered then.
