The US commander said the country needed more military aircraft for its war on terrorism.
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While agreeing that Pakistan has raised concerns about India’s growing role in Afghanistan, the top commander overseeing American operations in the war-struck country has welcomed New Delhi’s participation in strengthening local forces.
India has recently provided four Mi-25 helicopters to Afghanistan.
Nitin Mehta, a defense analyst in India, commented on the United States approach: “The call for stepping up military aid to Afghanistan is not a changed response of Washington in diplomatic terms, but only in military terms, arising from the sanctions by the Western world on Russian Federation, thereby [pulling] the plug on supply of military spares”.
“The tremendous cooperation India has made in the human capital of Afghan security forces is the one contribution that is going to be enduring”, he said referring to the training provided by India to Afghan forces.
Nicholson said Afghanistan needs more military aircraft to deal with the Taliban and other terrorist outfits such as the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad that are a threat to the entire region.
An estimated 300 ISIS fighters were killed in a joint Afghan-U.S. operation launched about two weeks ago, NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday.
“Due to sanctions on Russia, it’s hard to acquire supplies of spare-parts for Russian military platforms, because much of the money is given to Afghanistan by donors who have sanctions against Russia in place”.
Details are scant, and Nicholson conceded it was hard to get an exact count, but said he believed the offensive amounted to having killed some 25% of the fighters for ISIS’ Afghanistan affiliate, terming it a “severe setback” for the nascent faction. It also reduced the territory of the terror group.
Gen. Nicholson said the U.S. was trying to build a “counter-terrorism platform”, focusing on containing all terror groups emanating from the region and ensure its peace and stability.
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“We work with the Pakistanis and the Indians on that”, Nicholson said. This is where India is said to play a crucial role as it does not have sanctions against Russian Federation.
