10054

08/08/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10054

FRANKS ON TERRORISM WAR

Since the United States was attacked on September 11^th, a seventy nation U-S.-led coalition has been engaged in a global war against terrorism. The war began in Afghanistan where the coalition removed the oppressive Taleban regime.

A transitional government headed by Hamid Karzai now runs Afghanistan. And the country is no longer a safe haven for al-Qaida terrorists. Since March, hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees have returned to their homes.

U.S. and coalition forces have screened more than seven-thousand-five-hundred people detained in Afghanistan, conducted more than three-thousand-five-hundred interrogations, detained more than six-hundred people from over forty countries, and uncovered a vast amount of weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment.

But, said U.S. General Tommy Franks, "While U.S. and coalition forces have done a lot in the past ten months, the potential for terrorist attacks and for setbacks inside Afghanistan remains very real."

In some parts of Afghanistan, small numbers of remaining Taleban and al-Qaida have blended in with the civilian population. General Franks said that "Distinguishing between friend and foe remains a very difficult task in such a complex environment.... We have," said General Franks "a lot of awfully hard work left to do to finish the enemy in Afghanistan."

The U.S. is committed to working with the new Afghan government to lay the foundation for long-term stability and to reverse the conditions that allowed a terrorist regime to take root in the first place.

The U.S. and its coalition partners are helping to train a new Afghan national army. Last month, the first battalion of more than three-hundred soldiers graduated and another six-hundred are now in training. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that the new Afghan army will be "a force committed not to one group or one faction, but to the defense of the entire nation...which will allow Afghans to take responsibility for their own security rather than relying on foreign forces."