Toronto, Jan 23 (IANS) The Taliban continues to enjoy “safe havens inside Pakistan, where it is refinanced, rearmed and replenished with new recruits”, says an independent panel in its report submitted Tuesday on Canada’s future role in Afghanistan.
The panel, headed by former deputy Prime Minister John Manley, calls for conditional extension and refocusing of the Canadian combat mission towards reconstruction, training Afghan forces and diplomacy. With its 2,500 troops combating the Taliban in Kandahar, Canada is the fourth largest contributor to the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan.
As casualties mount, the Canadian public and parties have been calling for troop withdrawal, forcing the government to appoint the panel last October to study whether the Afghan mission should continue after February 2009 when its mandate ends.
The nation’s parliament will vote on the issue soon.
The report warned that the Taliban is fast regrouping as shown by mounting civilian casualties in 2007, compared to 2006.
“The Taliban centre of government-in-exile has shifted to the Pashtun areas of Quetta, Pakistan, and today Taliban commanders who are responsible for the violence in Afghanistan are directing it primarily from sanctuaries in Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s political disarray (only) magnifies the destabilising threat of the insurgency both to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“Its (Pakistan’s) own domestic political upheavals and recurring crises – and its concerns about India’s growing economic and political presence in Afghanistan – complicate the region’s geopolitics.”
It feared that the situation would only become “more volatile by the recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto”.
Urging the Canadian government to monitor Pakistan events closely, the report said: “It (the government) will have to adjust its Afghanistan strategy as events warrant. The situation in Pakistan is evolving very quickly”.
Calling for a Canadian commitment that is “neither open-ended nor faint-hearted”, the panel said Canada must not abandon Afghanistan prematurely as it involved Canada’s “international reputation”.
The report set two conditions for extension of the mission: the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) should provide 1,000 troops in Kandahar, sparing Canadian troops for training Afghan forces; and the Canadian government should provide lift helicopters and unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles.
It urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to set up to a cabinet committee to help him on the mission and ensure better coordination between military and civilian efforts.