02/25/2002

A new wave of flight from Afghanistan highlights the lack of security there. Nearly 20,000 Afghan refugees are waiting to get into Pakistan, and many more are on the way, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). So far this year, more than 50,000 Afghans have fled to Pakistan. They are trying to escape crime and fighting in their villages that are interfering with food deliveries necessitated by years of drought. The new surge of refugees is the latest indication that the U.S. and its allies must expand the international security force in Afghanistan.

The UNHCR calls the new movement “alarming,” and is rushing blankets, shelter, food and other relief materials to the refugees gathered near the Chaman border and who are crossing into Pakistan.

Insecurity, including an increase in factional fighting among warlords, continues to be the major problem in Afghanistan today, but it is a problem that the international community refuses to address. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that the UN Security Council authorized for Afghanistan is too small and too limited in its mandate. The force, led by the British, has deployed only to Kabul, but insecurity remains a nationwide problem that is interfering with relief and reconstruction work.

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s interim leader, has repeatedly called for an expanded security force that would deploy throughout the country to help separate feuding warlords and help stop crime and looting.

In December, the Security Council authorized deployment of up to 5,000 troops to Kabul. But the ISAF has been slow to deploy. There are currently about 4,200 soldiers, mostly from Europe, in Kabul. The force does not have a mandate to operate outside of Kabul. But that’s where the major security problems are.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy to Afghanistan, recently called for an expansion of the force. “The visible presence of the ISAF has led to an improvement in the security situation in Kabul,” he recently told the Security Council. “This has led to increasingly vocal demands, by ordinary Afghans, members of the interim administration and even warlords, for the expansion of ISAF to the rest of the country. We tend to agree and hope this will receive favorable and urgent consideration by the Security Council.” Some UN officials have recommended that the force be expanded to at least 30,000 and deployed more broadly through out the country.

The U.S. is currently considering whether to support an expansion of the force and other steps to improve security throughout Afghanistan.

If the U.S. and the international community are to make good on their promises to rebuild Afghanistan, the country must become more secure, not less. This can only happen if the U.S. takes an appropriate leadership role in helping Afghanistan address its immediate security challenges. The first step should be to expand the International Security Assistance Force. This will help give Afghans a sense of security that they need to return home, rebuild their farms and villages, and return their children to school.