KABUL — Thousands of foreign fighters have poured into Afghanistan to bolster the Taliban insurgency, the country’s defense minister said Saturday as he called for more international troops.
The minister’s comments hit on a key worry of the Obama administration: not sending enough troops to Afghanistan will open the door again to al-Qaida. They also suggest that the Afghan government is nervous about the U.S. commitment amid talk of changing the strategy and a surge in violence in recent months.
An American and two Polish troops were killed by bombs in the latest violence reported Saturday by NATO forces.
“The enemy has changed. Their number has increased,” Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told lawmakers in a speech. He said about 4,000 fighters, mostly from Chechnya, North Africa and Pakistan “have joined with them and they are involved in the fighting in Afghanistan.”
He gave no timeframe for the supposed increase in foreign fighters.
Wardak said Afghan intelligence services had asked for more international forces to cope with the foreign threat, and the minister’s spokesman said Wardak backed the call.
Afghanistan’s interior minister, who also spoke to parliament, endorsed a strategy promoted by the top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal to focus on protecting civilians rather than simply killing insurgents.
“If the target of this fight is only killing the Taliban, we will not win this war. If it is saving the Afghan people, then we have a possibility,” Hanif Atmar said.
The strategy debate in the U.S. has been complicated by the still-undecided Afghan presidential election, which has raised doubts about whether there will be reliable, credible Afghan leadership to cement any military gains by the U.S. and its allies.
Results from the disputed August vote have been delayed because of widespread allegations of fraud.
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