McChrystal lays out campaign for Kandahar - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

McChrystal lays out campaign for Kandahar

Efforts to lay political and security groundwork in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar have already begun, even as the U.S.-led coalition continues efforts to pacify Marjah, the U.S. general leading the effort said Wednesday.

Both goals are key to the Obama administration’s campaign to secure Afghanistan and establish credible governance.

The campaign to remove the Taliban from Kandahar won’t take the form of last month’s D-day-style military movement into Marjah, to the east in neighboring Helmand province, but will be a gradual buildup that employs both military force and political maneuvers, said Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, during a satellite-linked meeting with Pentagon reporters.

“What you are going to see in the months ahead — without giving too much detail — is a number of activities to shape the political relationships in and around Kandahar,” McChrystal said. “As you know, it’s a complex grouping of tribes and other relationships that define how power is shared in Kandahar.”

This process has become “very damaged” in the past few years, McChrystal said. “So one of the things we’ll be doing ... is working with political leaders to try to get an outcome that makes sense. That will then be supported by security operations — and that will, in some cases, be increased partnering inside the city with the Afghan National Police. We intend to put more forces in there to give better presence and better support to their internal security.”

McChrystal said he has already increased coalition forces around Kandahar, and will “continue to increase Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces in the months ahead.”

The provincial capital has recently been struck by Taliban bomb attacks described as a “warning” to McChrystal, killing or wounding more than 90 civilians, the Associated Press reported.

More trainers

In congressional testimony this week, McChrystal acknowledged, as did Army Gen. David Petraeus, chief of U.S. Central Command, that more trainers are needed to help increase Afghan National Security Forces capabilities.

“We have been very unequivocal back both to Washington, D.C., and of course, more appropriately, to NATO,” McChrystal said.

The number of trainers in country has been increased “significantly,” he said, as have moves linking coalition and Afghan forces, all efforts to develop the Afghan force. But to produce quality trainees at the desired rate, he said, “we need additional trainers.”

McChrystal said he was “pleased” with the progress made to date in Marjah. “But I would also say that we are just really still in the back end of the military phase of this, and that the longer-term phases ... where we’ve got to establish credible Afghan governance ... is a significant task in front of us.”

McCrystal acknowledged full awareness of the July 11, 2011, date Obama has set for the beginning of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, but said, as have several U.S. officials, that “the scope and the rate” of withdrawal “will be based upon conditions.”

He added his belief that enough trained and capable Afghan National Security Forces will be in place at that point to provide increasing security where they are stationed around the country.