SANGIN – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited the key battleground of southern Afghanistan Tuesday to meet troops ahead of the planned start of foreign force withdrawals from July. Flying into the country on Monday, Gates said that US and coalition forces are “well-positioned” to begin a gradual drawdown in four months’ time but he has not given a number for how many US personnel could leave then.
On Tuesday he saw the situation on the ground, visiting the US military base at Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province before heading to the troubled district of Sangin, where US Marines have suffered high casualties over the last five months.
Gates said the district had been the most dangerous place in Afghanistan and “maybe the whole world” before US Marines arrived. He said they had now “killed, captured or driven away most of the Taliban that called this place home.” A total of 24 marines have been killed and 150 wounded in Sangin since October, the highest casualty toll for any unit in Afghanistan.
British forces who were previously in Sangin suffered some 100 deaths there in four years, about a third of their total across Afghanistan at that stage.
As he hailed the progress made by US troops during a speech in Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai warned this year was critical for forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“This is extremely important and critical,” he said. “This is a year in which we will face crises and difficulties… the success that we hope for depends on our unity and statesmanship.”
The US-led fighting coalition views the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, traditional Taliban heartlands bordering Pakistan’s tribal areas, as crucial to turning the tide in the nine-year war.
Around 20,000 marines have been deployed in Helmand alone as part of a wider surge announced by President Barack Obama in December 2009.
Karzai gave a sobering assessment of potential troubles ahead as international forces start handing control of security to their Afghan counterparts over the coming months.
