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WORLD> Europe
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UK sets out strategy on Afghanistan
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-27 21:09
For foot soldiers of the insurgency, the Afghan government needs effective grass-root initiatives to offer an alternative livelihood. For high-level commanders and their networks, hard-line ideologues must be separated from those who can be drawn into domestic political processes, said Miliband. He argued that to succeed in Afghanistan, cooperation of ordinary Afghans with the insurgency -- passive and active -- must be cut off. "The squeeze on the Taliban must come from within as well as without." The ordinary Afghans hedge their bets and turn a blind eye to insurgents because they fear that the international troops would leave prematurely, leaving a state unable to protect them from the Taliban. They also fear for the absence of clean and consistent local governance and lack of economic opportunity. Therefore, the Afghans must be reassured of their future, said Miliband. He also stressed the importance of Afghanistan's neighbors, particularly Pakistan. The path to success on the Pakistani side of the insurgency requires strategy to shut out al-Qaida, to reconstruct areas that have already been subject to military operations and to include people in the tribal areas in the Pakistani state, he said. Miliband set out the strategy after his country saw 20 of its soldiers die in Afghanistan this month alone. Britain currently has 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, the second largest contributor to the NATO-led international force, after the United States.
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