In an unexpected trip, United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister, David Cameron, paid a visit to UK forces deployed in southern province of Helmand as part of North Atlantic Coalition force. He appraised the courageous efforts of his country's soldiers in combating terrorists and training Afghan National Security forces to be capable of dealing with security issues independently.
Though he confessed that terrorists still have presence across the country but viewed them incapable to deal a major blow to security situation. He said that insurgents have lost control over areas earlier they had, and Afghan security forces, as result of UK's trainers, are in a stage to fight insurgents without dependence on international allies.
He also announced his government's decision to pull out 4 thousand of its forces till end of 2013. Previously, French government withdrew its soldiers, however, out of NATO's overall mechanism for military drawdown.
While the France withdrew due to increasing civil pressure sparked on frequent incidents of blue-on-green attacks, but seemingly UK which maintains the second largest force in terms of quantity after US giant presence would go according to NATO's commitments to the government.
On the other hand, President Karzai appraised the move and said that foreign military withdrawal indeed means that international community is confident over the capacity of Afghan security forces. He also hoped that military withdrawal would lead to decrease of violence.
No doubt, President Karzai vividly noticed the concept that the presence of foreign security forces cause some individuals to fight side by side with Taliban militants. Military withdrawal will definitely deal blow to such a motive and many may lay down arms and join the government.
I hope the concept was true but unfortunately it is not. It has been years that figures within and out of the government have tried categorizing militants into Taliban and Non-Taliban, conservative and less conservative, yet no visible achievement has been made. Just simply including terrorists to this or that category have not and would not solve any issue. For Taliban
Kabul officials and Washington officials are the same. They will be targeted indiscriminately by militants. The mere hope of foreign military withdrawal will deal blow to line of those militants who hold militancy as their mission; according to them, invaders may not cause violence and insecurity to fade. Instead of such appreciation, it is highly reasonable that President Karzai should exploit the current global attention and strengthen security forces through trainings and update weaponries. Otherwise the excitement and welcome of foreign military withdrawal will be regretful.