Agence France-Presse,
KABUL: A new US general took command of NATO forces in Afghanistan Tuesday, vowing to deal with rebels who stood in the way of stability, as new attacks killed around two dozen people including three alliance troops.
US General David McKiernan took over the 52,000-strong International Security Assistance Force at a ceremony in Kabul attended by President Hamid Karzai and a host of dignitaries.
ISAF's role was to support the government in bringing security, development and effective governance, McKiernan said.
“Insurgents, foreign fighters, criminals and others who stand in the way of that mission will be dealt with,” said the general, who oversaw the US-led ground attack that toppled Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Karzai praised the work of the outgoing commander, US General Dan McNeill, in building the post-Taliban army towards the point when it could eventually “stand on its own feet” in defence of the country.
McNeill commanded ISAF for the past 16 months, the deadliest stretch of the Taliban-led insurgency said to include Al-Qaeda and other radical factions. The unrest left 8,000 people dead last year, most of them rebel fighters.
“Your task will not be easy,” Karzai said to McKiernan.
“We will lose lives… we will face terrorism but we must remain steadfast and together and dedicated.”
The head of the NATO Joint Force Command at Brunssum in The Netherlands, German General Egon Ramms, said the alliance was committed to the “huge task” it faced in Afghanistan.
The Taliban and other radical groups had “largely been marginalised,” Ramms said, but added: “It is only by raising living standards among the population that the insurgent can be truly isolated.”
NATO took command of ISAF in 2003, two years after the Taliban were driven from power in a US-led invasion unleashed weeks after the extremist government refused to hand over its Al-Qaeda allies for the 9/11 attacks.
The force has steadily grown to number 52,000 troops, nearly half from the United States.
McNeill has regularly said it is too small for its task in Afghanistan — with some nations facing their fiercest fighting in decades — but this did not mean it was unable to succeed.
The Afghan National Army, non-existent at the fall of the Taliban, has doubled in size during his term to number up to 58,000; there are about 70,000 police although the quality of the force is behind that of the army.
But the growing security forces are being confronted by increasing attacks.
In new violence Tuesday, a roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying ISAF soldiers in the eastern province of Paktia, killing two and wounding another, the alliance said.
Another ISAF soldier died of wounds after an engagement with insurgents in southern Afghanistan, it said in a separate statement.
The force did not release the nationalities of the soldiers. Seventy foreign troops have now lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, most of them in hostile action, according to an AFP count.
An ISAF air strike in Paktia late Monday killed five Taliban spotted planting bombs, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Dastageer told AFP.
In Zabul in the south, meanwhile, two Afghan security guards were killed when Taliban militants ambushed a food supply convoy for foreign troops, police said.
And in Khost in the east, unknown gunmen shot dead a district intelligence chief, a government official said, while on Monday a clash between Taliban and police left eight rebels and a policeman dead, police said.
