Europeans oppose new Afghan role

BERLIN, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- A U.S. proposal for NATO to join counterinsurgency combat in Afghanistan reportedly is drawing resistance from members like Germany and Britain.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is attending a meeting of the defense ministers of the NATO in Berlin, wants the alliance to expand its role beyond security and peacekeeping and tackle the Taliban-led insurgency, reports the International Herald Tribune.

Rumsfeld assures the 20,000 U.S. would continue to handle the counterinsurgency mission for a time, but wants NATO to gain counterinsurgency combat experience. This would also help the United States reduce its troop level as its soldiers have come under more insurgency attacks recently.

But Germany's Defense Minister Peter Struck says merging NATO's peacekeeping mission with the U.S. combat operation "would make the situation for our soldiers doubly dangerous and worsen the current climate in Afghanistan."

Britain, too, is reluctant to merge the two missions. France, which has Special Forces soldiers working alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan, says it too opposes merging the two missions, the report said.