Canada's defence chief acknowledges security eroding in Afghanistan

Gen. Walter Natynczyk, chief of the defence staff, said more NATO troops are needed to address the "complex counterinsurgency" posing dangerous challenges for Canadian soldiers.

In an interview broadcast Sunday on CTV's Question Period, Natynczyk said security had eroded in the capital Kabul, eastern Afghanistan and the southern part of the country where Canadian troops are stationed.

Natynczyk said he agreed with the U.S. view "the porous border is such that the Taliban can cross with impunity from the tribal areas in Pakistan."

He said there's a sense that insurgents are doing everything they can to undermine the Afghan government and international forces in advance of elections slated for next year.

"The Taliban are interdicting the highways and they're going after the Afghan population, the Afghan security forces as they go in and out of Kabul. So Kabul feels under siege, indeed."

The assessment was considerably less rosy than the general's recent, more upbeat comments about the strife-torn country, where he visited soldiers in Kandahar and met Afghan military officials in Kabul.

Natynczyk suggested coalition forces in Afghanistan should take their cue from Washington's decision to pour more troops into battle-scarred Iraq.

"I think what I'm hearing from my U.S. counterparts is that the surge in Iraq had a significant positive effect, and that we know that Afghanistan does not have enough coalition and NATO troops in it to address this counterinsurgency. And it's a complex counterinsurgency," he said.

"And so as we have said in the Canadian sector in Kandahar, regional command south, we need additional troops. And indeed we're going see additional troops with the U.S. battalion that will be allocated to that area.

"In a counterinsurgency it is troop intensive, because it's not enough just to clear the Taliban out, but while you're building the capacity of the Afghan police and the Afghan army you need to have that security blanket to ensure that there's time for the police and the army to have that capacity to address their own security."

He says Canadian soldiers report "localized, fragile signs of success" despite continuing violence, adding they "are telling me that they have made an impact with creating that security force."

Natynczyk said he was encouraged that some Canadian troops were on their second or even third tour of duty in Afghanistan - and that they wanted to be there.