"OT"
Afghan rivalries threaten US troops
By Charles Clover at Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan and agencies
Published: March 10 2002 20:38 | Last Updated: March 10 2002 20:41
news.ft.com
Four hundred US troops were withdrawn on Sunday from an eight-day US offensive in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan as fighting in Shah-i-kot valley subsided.
But regional and tribal rivalries threatened to throw the operation into chaos as an Afghan commander demanded that central government troops be withdrawn from the fighting.
Major Bryan Hilferty, briefing reporters at Bagram Airbase north of Kabul, described the US troop withdrawal as "repositioning". "Operation Anaconda continues," he said, referring to the codename for the operation.
But at the time of the US withdrawal, an Afghan commander in Gardez was asking Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, to withdraw more than 1,000 ethnic Tajik troops - soldiers who had been sent by the defence ministry on Friday to reinforce the local forces.
Mohammed Ismail, an ethnic Pashtun commander, expressed fears among local commanders that the Tajik troops, who had come with at least 10 tanks, might cause friction in Paktia province, which is mainly ethnic Pashtun, and might attempt to take control of the
"We propose to Mr Hamid Karzai to instruct the new coming troops to go back to their places of origin," he said. |
