Afghans 'Hate NATO More Than the Russians'

March 05, 2007

Comment: civilian deaths are making Nato the enemy

Tim Albone in Kabul

The battle to defeat the Taleban will not be won in the trenches of Helmand; it will only be won when Nato convinces ordinary Afghans that it is a force for good. At the moment this is a battle they are losing miserably.

The International Security Assistance Force's reputation has never been worse and has been exacerbated lately by a string of civilian deaths at the hands of Nato and American coalition soldiers.

Yesterday a US Special Forces convoy was attacked by a suicide bomber near the Pakistan border; witnesses said the Americans then went on a killing spree firing indiscriminately at shopkeepers and drivers. The Americans said they came under attack and returned fire.

The exact details are unimportant. Regardless of the truth, Afghans on the scene blamed the Americans; a mob of hundreds gathered chanting "death to America" and pelted police with stones.

Many of the civilian casualties, such as today's, have been caused by misdirected air strikes and it is something that particularly angers the Afghans.

The problem is that Nato, regardless of any assurances otherwise, is desperately short of troops on the ground. A lack of troops to fight insurgents means a reliance on air support and a reliance on air support means that when things go wrong they go very wrong. A 1,000LB bomb dropped on a house causes a lot of damage.

I have an Afghan friend, a southerner who is a great gauge of what Afghans in the southern Pashtun heartlands think of international troops. It is in the south that the insurgency is at its worst and it is here the battle for hearts and minds is so important. I spoke to him earlier today after the latest attack and he said to me: "People hate Nato more than the Russians."

It's amazing to think that only five years after troops were met with widespread approval when they overthrew the Taleban that they are now compared to the hated Soviet army. It's hard until you think how you would feel if someone dropped a bomb on your neighbour's house or shot your brother for driving too close to a military convoy.