Dutch general takes command of NATO force in S Afghanistan

KABUL (AFP) - A Dutch general took command Saturday of 19,000 mostly British, Canadian, Dutch and US NATO-led soldiers in southern Afghanistan, a challenging area that has seen intense Taliban unrest.
Dutch Major General Mart de Kruif replaced Canadian Major General Marc Lessard as head of the International Security Assistance Force in southern Afghanistan at a ceremony at the Kandahar Air Base.
“A dynamic year lies ahead of us. The capacities and capabilities of the Afghan National Security Forces will increase. More coalition forces will deploy into Afghanistan,� de Kruif told the event, an ISAF release said.
“The voter registration process is under way and after summer next year it will be followed by the elections,� he said, referring to presidential elections due around September 2009.
Lessard said his nine months as commander of the south had been “at times intense�.
It had seen rapid development in the Afghan National Army, which had played a greater role in the planning and execution of missions, he was cited as saying in the statement.
The roughly 50,000 soldiers in ISAF nationwide are helping the Afghan government to build its security forces â€" which were in ruins by the time the Taliban government was toppled in 2001 â€" as well as fight an insurgency.
Lessard described the militants as “resilient� and “ruthless� and said that they had an “increased activity rate� although this had little enduring effect.
Southern Afghanistan includes the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan, bastions of the Taliban and key producers of Afghanistan’s illegal opium. While, after four months in Afghanistan, French Colonel Jacques Aragones says he had learned an important lesson: to effectively do battle with the Taliban, one has to be unpredictable.