US President Barack Obama vowed to intensify the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan as he outlined a new strategy for a conflict that began more than seven years ago but has no end in sight. Obama announced Washington will increase development aid to both countries but will hold their governments accountable for its use and implement benchmarks to ensure the money is being spent effectively.
That will include 1.5 billion dollars in annual aid to Pakistan over the next five years to build schools, roads and hospital and strengthen democratic institutions. "The American people must understand that this is a down payment on our own future, because the security of America and Pakistan is shared," Obama said. "Pakistan's government must be a stronger partner in destroying these safe havens, and we must isolate al Qaeda from the Pakistani people."
Obama said he was ordering an additional 4,000 soldiers to Afghanistan to increase the effort to build up Afghan security forces on top of the 17,000 already enroute to the country this year. "We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future," Obama said.
Obama's speech came days before he heads to Germany and France for a Nato summit, where he will present his new approach and is expected to ask allies to contribute more to the conflict in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend an international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague on Tuesday.
Obama made it clear that al Qaeda's leadership, including Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is hiding in Pakistan and plotting terrorist attacks on the United States and other countries, and called on the government in Islamabad to do more to deny al Qaeda refuge.
"They have used this mountainous terrain as a safe haven to hide, to train terrorists, to communicate with followers, to plot attacks, and to send fighters to support the insurgency in Afghanistan," Obama said. "For the American people, this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world," he said. "But this is not simply an American problem; far from it. It is instead an international security challenge of the highest order."
Obama launched a strategic review of the situation in Afghanistan shortly after taking office in January, and has pledged to shift US resources out of Iraq and into the conflict with the Taliban. The United States will also send more diplomatic and civilian personnel to Afghanistan to help with reconstruction and strengthen President Hamid Karzai's government, which Obama said has been plagued by corruption.
The United States has been conducting periodic attacks into the mountainous tribal region of Pakistan along the border, strikes that Islamabad publicly condemns as a violation of its sovereignty. Obama provided no indication he would rein in the attacks.
"After years of mixed results, we will not and cannot provide a blank check. Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders," he said. "And we will insist that action be taken, one way or another, when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets."
Obama's troop increase will take the US presence in Afghanistan to more than 50,000 soldiers. More than 700 American soldiers have died in the war in Afghanistan since October 2001, and the heaviest toll came last year as a resurgent Taliban stepped up attacks and the security environment sharply deteriorated.
Citing the success the US military had in Iraq by reaching out to former enemies to turn them against al Qaeda, Obama said a similar strategy could be adopted with moderate elements of the Taliban. "There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force. And they must be defeated. But there are also those who have taken up arms because of coercion or simply for a price," he said. "These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course."