لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
By JASON STRAZIUSO,
KABUL, Afghanistan – The Taliban’s leadership council accused France’s president Saturday of reneging on a campaign promise by pledging to send 700 more French troops to Afghanistan.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the NATO summit in Romania this week said France would deploy 700 extra soldiers to Afghanistan.
The Taliban said that goes against an apparent campaign promise Sarkozy made in early 2007, when he told France-2 television “the long-term presence of French troops in that part of the world does not look definitive to me.”
The hard-line militia said that broken pledge was in line with other NATO leaders “lying” to their nations about the progress being made in Afghanistan.
“When he said to his nation that he was going to withdraw his forces when he becomes president, the Taliban released two (kidnapped) French nationals,” said the Taliban statement, which was read over the phone by spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid.
“But he is a liar. Instead of withdrawing forces he is sending more troops. All the NATO leaders are lying to their nations.”
The Taliban last May released two kidnapped French aid workers after five weeks in captivity. A militant spokesman at the time said the pair were released in consideration of Sarkozy’s comments, which appeared to signal an upcoming pullout. The Taliban had demanded the withdrawal of all French troops in exchange for the pair’s freedom.
The Taliban also said Saturday the NATO summit was “just propaganda” without any practical effect.
NATO countries “have told their nations that they are going to bring peace to Afghanistan and they are going to reconstruct Afghanistan, but they couldn’t do anything for the Afghan people,” Mujahid said. “Instead they are bombing the agricultural lands and the houses of Afghan people. They are not reconstructing, they are destroying Afghanistan.”
The international community has spent hundreds of millions of dollars (euros) on new roads, schools and government offices in Afghanistan, but many average Afghans say they don’t derive any benefit from the aid money.
The Taliban statement said the militia would defeat NATO forces the same way mujahedeen fighters defeated Soviet forces in the 1980s.
Last year was Afghanistan’s bloodiest since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. More than 8,000 people died in insurgency-related violence, according to U.N. figures.
U.S. and NATO troop levels in Afghanistan are at their highest ever. The U.S. now has about 31,000 troops in Afghanistan of about 60,000 total international forces.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday said the United States intends to send many more combat forces to Afghanistan next year, regardless of whether troop levels in Iraq are cut further this year.
It is the first time the Bush administration has made such a commitment for 2009. Gates did not specify how many more troops might be sent.
