US Afghan surge to begin this week

[David]

KABUL (AFP) – The vanguard of a 30,000-strong US troop surge in Afghanistan will arrive this week to fight a war increasingly linked to Al-Qaeda and extremists in Pakistan, the top US military officer said Monday.

Admiral Mike Mullen flew into Afghanistan to discuss President Barack Obama's new war strategy, aimed at turning around the eight-year Taliban insurgency, denying Al-Qaeda a safe haven and training Afghan forces.

"The key part of that strategy was the decision to surge an additional 30,000 United States troops in Afghanistan," Mullen told reporters.

"Marines from Camp Lejeune will arrive this very week," he added, referring to the largest US Marine Corps base on the US east coast.

A 1,500-strong Marine contingent is expected this week in southern Helmand, one of the toughest battlefields, to prepare the logistics for thousands more due in the coming months.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Dave Lapan said most of the 30,000 troops would probably be in place by the end of summer 2010.

Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, voiced concern about collusion between Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups sheltering in neighbouring Pakistan.

"Getting at this network, which is now more entrenched, will be a far more difficult task than it was just one year ago," he said.

The US administration is putting increased pressure on neighbouring Pakistan to do more to fight militants who use its soil to attack NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The Los Angeles Times reported that senior US officials were pushing to expand CIA drone attacks into the Pakistani city of Quetta in an attempt to pressure Islamabad to pursue Taliban leaders.

Mullen warned that violence is likely to get worse before it gets better and said militants had the upper hand in nearly a third of Afghan provinces.

"I told our troops heading here to steel themselves for more combat and more casualties," he said.

"The insurgency has grown more violent, more pervasive, more sophisticated. Insurgents have dominant influence in nine of Afghanistan's 34 provinces."

The United States hopes to increase the number of Afghan soldiers and police to 287,000 by July 2011 -- its target date to start withdrawing US soldiers -- but commanders have warned of difficulties recruiting forces.

Islamist gunmen and renegade police stormed two posts in the north and south Monday, killing 16 policemen in attacks that demonstrated the vulnerability of Afghan forces.

"Eight police were martyred in a terrorist attack in the province of Baghlan... eight police were martyred in another terrorist attack in the province of Helmand," the interior ministry said.

A local official blamed the attack in the southern province of Helmand on three renegade policemen who turned their guns on colleagues -- the latest in a string of such attacks.

"They fired at their police colleagues killing seven. One of the three grabbed weapons and a police vehicle and managed to escape to the Taliban," provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi said.

The attack in the north targeted a police post on a highway bisecting northeast Afghanistan from Kabul through Baghlan province, a main NATO supply route.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, after a visit to troops in the field, said a summit in London next month would name a successor to the much-criticised UN envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide.

The January 28 summit, to be attended by 68 nations and bodies, will deliver a "new compact" with Afghanistan, he said.

This will involve "reaffirming the role of the UN, announcing the new special representative of the (UN) secretary general, and announcing stronger civil coordination in ISAF," the NATO-led force in the country, he said.