KABUL, Afghanistan, June 16 (UPI) -- One of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's top advisers called Sunday for at least 100 international peacekeepers to be sent to Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan to discourage factional fighting and violent crime.
"All of us realize and, particularly those who are charged with administrative responsibilities, there is a need for an international presence" in Mazar-i-Sharif, said Ashraf Ghani, senior adviser to Karzai.
"One hundred members of (the International Security and Assistance Force) could be an important presence in the city," Ghani said.
On Saturday, U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi warned Karzai in a letter that U.N. and other aid groups may pull out of Mazar-i-Sharif because of escalating violence between forces loyal to three warlords, including two currently in the Afghan Defense Ministry -- Gen. Abdur Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammed.
An American aid worker was viciously gang-raped June 8, and humanitarian aid vehicles and clinics have been fired on, Brahimi said.
Brahimi met with the warlords on Saturday to ask for their help in quelling the violence.
Ghani said Sunday that "Gen. Dostum himself has invited ISAF to Mazar."
The United States and the U.N. Security Council have opposed the expansion of international peacekeeping forces beyond Kabul despite repeated requests from Afghan officials.
One U.S. concern is that spreading ISAF too thinly makes the force vulnerable to attack, and no nations have offered more than the roughly 5,000 troops already in Kabul. ISAF is composed of soldiers from 18 nations, who are generally a welcome presence in the city.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has often expressed his objections to deploying international peacekeepers around the war-ravaged country as it would make Afghanistan dependent on outside forces for its internal security. When the forces pull out, the country would be right back where it started.
Rumsfeld believes that a large and long-lasting peacekeeping force will only delay the work that has to be done by the factions in Afghanistan to build real stability, according to aides.
"Probably ultimately, the best way that it will be achieved is by the decisions of the interim government, the successor government, and the various armies that exist in different locations around that country. At some point, there has to be a political process that knits them together and is sufficiently balanced that they all nod and agree and say, 'Yes, security's important, and yes, we would like to do it this way,'" Rumsfeld said in April.
They will not have the opportunity to come to that conclusion if a large foreign peacekeeping force is in place "pouring oil over the water," a U.S. defense official told United Press International.
