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David Cameron Makes Unannounced Afghanistan Visit David Cameron Meets Afghan President in Unannounced Trip
(about 4 hours later)
LONDON — As Britain joins the United States and other allies in combating the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, Prime Minister David Cameron flew to Afghanistan for a previously unannounced visit on Friday to honor British soldiers who fought and died there in earlier efforts to contain Islamic extremism. KABUL, Afghanistan — Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain became the first world leader to visit Afghanistan’s new president, Ashraf Ghani, on Friday, in an unannounced trip to mark the impending departure of British troops from the country while assuring the new unity government of continued financial and political support.
British troops are to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan at the end of the year after a campaign spanning more than a decade in which 453 British soldiers died in the war waged by a NATO coalition. The fighting has claimed 2,348 American lives, according to the monitoring group icasualties.org. Noting the “heavy price” paid by Britain in Afghanistan, where 453 British service members have died in over a decade of fighting, Mr. Cameron said it was now time for the Afghan security forces to defend their own country. “Now, 13 long years later, Afghanistan can — and must — deliver its own security,” he said.
“They have paid a very high price for our engagement in Afghanistan; they have done vital work here,” Mr. Cameron said, referring to British troops in a war that, like the conflict in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, drew widespread opposition from Britons. He also offered his blessing to the fledgling government led by Mr. Ghani, a former technocrat who came to power through a contentious political deal, but who has promised a sweeping agenda of overhauls and turned a friendlier face to Western allies than his predecessor, Hamid Karzai.
“We should remember those who paid the ultimate price,” Mr. Cameron said, “and those who were injured through the work they did.” “We are not leaving this country alone,” Mr. Cameron said. “In Britain you will always have a strong partner and a friend.”
Mr. Cameron, on his 13th visit to Afghanistan, is set to become the first world leader to meet President Ashraf Ghani, who took office on Monday after lengthy political wrangling after a contested election. After meeting Mr. Ghani in Kabul, Mr. Cameron flew to the southern province of Helmand, where British troops are preparing to leave a major desert base by the end of the year.
Mr. Cameron said that British troops had contributed to denying Al Qaeda a haven while preparing Afghan Army and police forces to look after the country’s security. Elsewhere, though, the British are escalating military action.
“I think we have gone a long way to achieving that,” he said. “I think that is a very real achievement.” Mr. Cameron flew into Afghanistan from Cyprus, where he had visited British fighter pilots taking part in airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq. “The work of defeating Islamist extremist terror goes on elsewhere,” he said. “And because this threatens us at home, we must continue to play our part.”
“This is where 9/11 and countless other plots were hatched,” he said, speaking of the days before 2001 when Osama bin Laden operated from sanctuaries in Afghanistan, then under the control of the Taliban. For Mr. Ghani, the visit represented another step toward resetting Afghanistan’s relationship with important Western allies, while purging the rancor that had accumulated during the last years of Mr. Karzai’s tenure.
“The core U.K. mission was about our own domestic security,” Mr. Cameron said, according to a transcript of his remarks. “That required an Afghan Army and police capable of taking care of their own security and denying Al Qaeda a safe haven.” On Tuesday, a day after his inauguration, Mr. Ghani signed security deals with the United States and NATO to allow for a limited Western military presence after Dec. 31. That force, estimated to number at least 12,000 mostly American soldiers, will mainly help train the Afghan security forces.
While British leaders have frequently sought to justify the deployment in Afghanistan by citing the imperatives of counterterrorism at home, the most lethal attack in London — on July 7, 2005 — was planned by British citizens with ties to Pakistan. On that day, four suicide bombers killed 52 travelers on the London transit system. But a smaller number of American Special Operations forces will also stay behind to carry out counterterrorism raids in Afghanistan — a stark reminder that the goal of eradicating terrorism, which as Mr. Cameron said Friday “is why we came here in the first place,” remains unachieved.
Mr. Cameron was speaking as the government in London promised a new crackdown on Islamic militants, while a handful of British Royal Air Force jets were again flying combat missions alongside the United States in the skies over Iraq. The British experience in Helmand, a sprawling province along the border with Pakistan at the heart of the illicit opium trade, offers a sobering example of the limitations of Western military action in Afghanistan. Announcing the mission in 2006, Britain’s defense secretary at the time, John Reid, said he hoped British troops would leave Helmand after three years “without firing one shot.”
Mr. Cameron has not joined the United States, however, in attacking targets of the Islamic State in Syria. But the British quickly became embroiled in a bloody fight on several fronts. Taliban insurgents streamed across the border from bases in northern Pakistan. And well-organized opium warlords, some with connections to the Karzai government, also attacked British forces.
“We are fighting a generational struggle against Islamist extremist terrorists,” Mr. Cameron said. “This is a battle we are going to be engaged in for many, many years.” American troops were sent to Helmand as part of the surge announced by President Obama in 2009, eventually taking over the combat role. But their effect was also limited.
Now, much of northern Helmand is contested territory, with district centers coming under ferocious attack from Taliban fighters while the opium trade hits a record high this year.
As the military operation winds down, Afghanistan’s immediate needs are financial. In November, Mr. Ghani and Mr. Cameron will host an international donor conference in London that will determine the extent of international aid to Afghanistan in the coming years. Britain has already committed to give 178 million pounds, or about $288 million, a year until 2017, Mr. Cameron said.
Mr. Ghani has taken steps to assure Western donors that any further money will not be squandered. On Wednesday, he ordered the courts to take new action on the collapse of Kabul Bank in 2010, a $900 million scandal that to many Western donors embodied the impunity of the rich and powerful.
A large part of the Afghan budget is absorbed by the wages of its 340,000-member security forces, which Mr. Cameron described in glowing terms in Kabul. “These are capable, determined forces,” he said. But those forces have been sorely tested this year as Taliban insurgents mount attacks on vulnerable districts across the country, including in Helmand.
For weeks now, Afghan forces have been under Taliban assault at Sangin, a district at the center of the opium trade where many British and American lives were lost in the past seven years.
Mr. Ghani is seeking to move away from the belligerent attitude of Mr. Karzai, who frequently criticized foreign troops for civilian casualties, toward a friendly yet firm approach to Western allies that he needs to bankroll his government.
On Friday, he acknowledged the sacrifices of British and other international troops who were killed or wounded in Afghanistan. Some had “left pieces of their body here,” he said, while others returned home with “haunting” memories. But he also reminded his Western allies that they had come to Afghanistan to secure their own interests.
“Remember what brought us together was tragedy,” he said. “9/11 was followed by attacks on London. Your presence here has meant that London has been safe, as well as the rest of the world.”
Afghanistan had suffered from “the ugly side of globalization,” Mr. Ghani said. “There cannot be fortress Europe or fortress America. We live, whether we like it or dislike it, in an integrated world where global forces, both for good and for evil, coexist.”