The Netherlands is to send an extra 200 troops to Afghanistan due to the worsening security situation in the south of the country.
The Dutch government agreed in February to deploy 1,200-1,400 soldiers to help reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan after months of tortured debate within parliament and the ruling center-right coalition. Critics of the plan said the Dutch peacekeepers, who are being sent to one of the country's most volatile provinces -- Uruzgan -- would get sucked into an increasingly violent insurgency and would be exposed to unacceptable levels of risk. However, the two main governing parties argued that Afghanistan would slip back into anarchy if the West stopped investing in the country's reconstruction. The United States also applied considerable pressure on The Hague to send troops, with some senior officials hinting at sanctions if it refused to play its part in the expansion of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force into the more dangerous south and east of the country.
Parliament eventually backed the plan after securing assurances from NATO that troops would not be involved in combat duty. However, since the vote the security situation in the war-torn country has seriously deteriorated, according to the Dutch military intelligence service MIVD.
Taliban forces, which were removed from power in 2001, have launched dozens of attacks against ISAF forces, Afghan troops, government ministers and even schools since the start of the year. As in Iraq, suicide bombings, kidnappings and improvised explosive devices are increasingly used to sow destruction and destabilize the Western-leaning government of President Hamid Karzai.
The insurgents, who include Taliban and al-Qaida remnants, drug barons and warlords, are also better organized and better equipped than in the past, according to the MIVD report. "The trend that started in 2005 whereby the Taliban is better organized in a tactical sense, makes more effective use of communications and weapons systems and acts in a more coordinated way, seems to be continuing this year," it said.
In response to the deteriorating security situation, The Hague is sending an additional 200 military personnel to the Uruzgan province. This would bump up the Dutch contingent to 1,400 to 1,600 by the end of the summer -- a figure which could peak at 2000 when the Netherlands takes over control of ISAF's Kandahar headquarters in November. NATO plans to increase its overall troop levels from 7,000 to 16,000 by the fall, with the majority of the new soldiers coming from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. Most of the troops will be stationed in the south and east of the central Asian state, where the bulk of the country's opium trade is centered and al-Qaida and Taliban forces are increasingly active.
The Dutch government also plans to provide more protection for its troops. According to the Radio Netherlands Web site, Defence Minister Henk Kamp has decided to send additional armored personnel carriers, heavy self-propelled artillery and Cougar helicopters with better night vision equipment. Unmanned surveillance aircraft will be deployed, as will more F-16 fighter planes. The additional measures are expected to increase the costs of the operation by about $120 million, bringing total expenditure to almost $500 million.
Despite the grim security reports from Uruzgan, Kamp believes the mission can succeed. "We're capable of carrying out the task well. We're starting our work there on 1 August. We're following the developments on a daily basis and, if necessary, we'll take new measures."
However, left-wing lawmakers -- who opposed the deployment -- want parliament to debate the new situation in Uruzgan this week. "This is a different mission from the one which the (lower) house agreed to in February," said Socialist legislator Harry van Bommel. "This is clearly going to be a fighting mission."
