Afghans must support government, its forces in fight against rebels: Campbell

Gen John Campbell, the Commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) Mission & US Forces in Afghanistan has expressed his satisfaction on Kabul-Islamabad efforts for peace in Afghanistan saying he is pleased for the efforts being made.

Briefing reporters on Saturday in Kabul on the current situation, Gen. Campbell said Afghan security forces are fighting hardly in the battlefields against the insurgents.

“Afghan forces are fighting in Badakhshan, Kunduz, where we haven’t seen in the last couple of years and there is probably a lot of different reasons, they are not quite only Taliban, but there are criminal activity as well, they are smuggling drugs and weapons and there are issues with mine industries in Badakhshan,” Campbell said,” Afghanistan is fighting insurgency that is coming to Afghanistan from a lot of different places, and therefore President Ghani has recently said this is not a fight for Afghanistan, but for the whole region”.

The U.S. General said he was disappointed by the Afghan parliament for rejecting Mohammad Masoom Stanikzai as the Minister of Defense.

“I’m very disappointed in Parliament that they didn’t pass minister Stanekzai as minister of defense, he is a very honest man, he has great vision for Afghan army and I think that was a big injustice done for the Afghan people specially in a time of war where the parliament could not pass a minister of defense that we need so very long.”

Campbell believes that existence of the international forces in Afghanistan after 2016 must be decided according to the situation.

“I’m working with MoI & MoD and I will provide the report at the end of the fighting season and then we will talk about 2016 and beyond and what the timetable would be.”

He believes peace talks needs some time and assessed Pakistan and Afghanistan efforts positive saying Pakistan and Afghanistan are working together to fight the common enemy to bring peace to Afghanistan and the fight in Afghanistan have to come to a political solution at the end.

But we have to give this some time and I’m very please for Pakistan and Afghanistan working on this working together to fight the common enemy to bring peace toward Afghanistan and this have to come to a political solution at the end.

Reported by: Fahim Noori