More troops, more Afghan violence, short-term: NATO

[David]

KABUL (Reuters) – A U.S. proposal to send more troops to southern Afghanistan will lead to a short-term rise in violence before stability can be brought to the region, the deputy commander of NATO forces in the country said on Wednesday.

Faced with a virulent insurgency and the worst year of violence since the Taliban were toppled in 2001, the United States is sending 3,000 extra troops in January.

If President-elect Barack Obama agrees, that number could rise to 20,000 in the next 12 to 18 months.

While the first brigade to arrive in the new year will reinforce the southern fringes of Kabul, any further U.S. deployments are likely to be sent to the south where British, Canadian and Dutch forces are struggling to contain the Taliban in their traditional heartland.

The arrival of new troops will "lead to a short-term spike in violence," the deputy commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Jim Dutton, told a news conference.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week troops in the south were "holding their own," but that was not good enough.

"You will increase the level of incidents and violence when you first put troops into an area, that's to be expected and indeed in some ways welcomed because that's the purpose of going there in the first place," said Dutton.

Some 8,000 British troops in the southern province of Helmand and more than 2,500 Canadians in neighboring Kandahar province are almost at full stretch fighting the Taliban, military analysts say.

They have suffered heavy casualties due to a shortage of heavily armored troop carriers and helicopters.

The biggest difference U.S. troops can make in the region is "sheer numbers," Dutton said.

The renewed focus on Afghanistan and the region promised by Obama is also a factor that should lead to improvements in security, he said.

"When the U.S. turns its attention to something, you get a lot of attention paid," the British Royal Marine general said.

The U.S. Corps of Engineers is already planning work on expanding runways and building facilities for the extra troops.

"We're doing probably somewhere between $500 million and $1.3 billion worth of work in the next 18 months or so across the south to support increased U.S. troops presence," said Colonel Thomas O'Donovan, commander of the corps in Afghanistan.