Karzai wants US to reduce military operations: report

WASHINGTON: President Hamid Karzai warned in an interview Sunday that the US military must scale back operations and reduce its “intrusiveness” into Afghan life or risk fueling the Taliban insurgency.

“The time has come to reduce military operations,” Karzai told The Washington Post in Kabul.

Karzai said it was time to lighten the US military footprint in his country and shift towards a more civilian operation in order to “reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life.” He also said the presence of about 100,000 US troops, in particular the raids conducted by American forces on Afghan homes, inflame the emotions of everyday Afghans and lead angry young men to join the insurgency.

“The raids are a problem always. They were a problem then, they are a problem now. They have to go away,” Karzai said.

Night raids were particularly offensive to Afghans, he said, describing the operations as “terrible.” The Afghan people don’t like these raids, if there is any raid it has to be done by the Afghan government within the Afghan laws. This is a continuing disagreement between us.” Karzai suggested that the United States should focus more intently on rooting out Taliban sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan, and shift its emphasis in Afghanistan to development work.

The comments appear to put the Afghan president squarely at odds with US commander General David Petraeus, who is said to favor the raids as key to his counterinsurgency strategy.

It also runs counter to the US plan of intensifying military operations against the Taliban ahead of the start of a planned American military withdrawal in mid-2011.

President Barack Obama’s administration has sought to shift the emphasis away from that drawdown timetable in recent weeks, instead stressing the goal of handing over security to Afghans by 2014.

An unnamed NATO military official expressed skepticism about Karzai’s comments.

“We understand President Karzai’s concerns, but we would not be as far along as we are pressuring the network had it not been for these very precision operations we do at night,” the official told The Washington Post.

“I don’t see any near-term alternative to this kind of operation.” Lindsey Graham, a leading Republican senator who dined with Karzai during a recent visit to Afghanistan, said Sunday he was “just stunned” by the leader’s remarks.

“We were briefed by our military commanders that we own the night militarily and are making a huge impact on the Taliban, (on) the insurgency as a whole,” he told the ABC News program “This Week.” To take the night raids off the table would be a disaster,” Graham said.

“The Petraeus strategy must be allowed to go forward for us to be successful.” The senator also said US troops should begin coming home by summer of 2011 but that a “substantial number” would need to stay until 2014, when Karzai said his forces would be able to take the lead in security operations.

Karzai told The Washington Post he was speaking out not to criticize the United States but in the belief that candor could improve what he called a “grudging” relationship between the countries.

He acknowledged an abrupt withdrawal would be dangerous, but said US soldiers should be more confined to their bases and limit themselves to necessary operations along the Pakistani border, The Washington Post said. – AFP