Germany's defense minister on Sunday for the first time referred to military
operations in Afghanistan
as a war, while he promised to investigate a friendly fire clash that
left six Afghan soldiers dead.
Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg broke a
government taboo on the politically charged word, preparing Germans to
expect more fighting by telling reporters: "Even if not everyone likes
it, regarding what happens in parts of Afghanistan, one can colloquially
refer to it as war."
German politicians have stopped short of using the
word to refer to military operations in Afghanistan for fear of
generating even more public opposition to a mission that is already
deeply unpopular.
Some 4,000 German soldiers control the relatively
peaceful north of Afghanistan, and 39 German soldiers have died in
Afghanistan in the last nine years. Parts of the north have recently
proven more volatile.
Friendly fire clashes on Friday left six Aghan
soldiers dead, the same day three German troops died and eight were
wounded in heavy fighting with insurgents.
"Operations there are and remain dangerous,"
Guttenberg said at a televised news conference in Bonn.
Guttenberg said the German prosecutor general has
opened an investigation into the friendly fire incident. In addition, NATO's ISAF, the Afghan
Defense Ministry and the defense department will investigate what
happened, Guttenberg said.
Friday's attack on the German soldiers — carried out
by an estimated 150 Taliban fighters — was "remarkable in its
complexity" and involved several attacks in different locations,
Guttenberg added.
The German troops were rushing to the scene of their
comrades' fighting after nightfall and mistook the Afghan soldiers for
insurgents, the military said. Guttenberg expressed his sympathy to the
families and relatives of the Afghan soldiers killed by German soldiers.
Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed condolences to Afghan President Hamid Karzai,
and Guttenberg presented his apologies to his Afghan counterpart Abdul Rahim Wardak, he
said.
Amid heavy fighting, friendly fire incidents "can never be
excluded with absolute certainty," Guttenberg said.
Germany is still committed to building a secure
Afghanistan, he said, noting that a failing state could have a
destabilizing impact on Central
Asia and Afghanistan's neighbors, Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Guttenberg has been inching closer to directly using
the word "war" since becoming defense minister in October, refering to
"conditions similar to a war." Guttenberg stressed Sunday that the word
can only be used "colloquially" because the legal definition for a war
would require two nations to be in armed conflict.
After more than eight years in Afghanistan, the
government in February changed its official stance on the conflict from
"stabilization mission" to "armed conflict."
Col. Ulrich Kirsch, the head of the German soldiers'
union, has said that wording offers troops "increased legal security"
because they may resort to force more easily.
Earlier on Sunday, development minister Dirk Niebel
urged the public to show more understanding and support for their troops in Afghanistan,
asking for "more comprehension for the need that they sometimes have to
defend themselves preemptively."
Niebel met with German soldiers in Afghanistan on
Saturday after visiting development projects and flew back to Germany on
Sunday with three coffins from Friday's fighting near Kunduz.
The Kunduz region is also where German forces were
sharply criticized last September when they ordered an airstrike on two
tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of
them civilians.
Retired General Harald Kujat, formerly the highest ranking German
soldier and chairman of the NATO Military Committee, accused the
government of "ignorance regarding the military's needs" for its
operations in Afghanistan.
Kujat told the Welt am
Sonntag newspaper that crucial equipment for a successful mission
was lacking and said more soldiers were needed. The current mandate —
allowing a maximum of 5,000 soldiers — is a political compromise "which
does not reflect the real operational needs," he was quoted as saying.
The government lacks a coherent strategy for its mission in Afghanistan,
he said.
Guttenberg — without explicitly referring to Kujat — defended the German
government's strategy and rejected criticism on the military's
equipment, instead praising the soldiers professionalism in Friday's
fighting.
Kujat — Germany's top soldier from 2000 to 2002 before moving to NATO — also said he
expects more brazen attacks by the Taliban on the German military in
northern Afghanistan.
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
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