http://www.boston.com/dailynews/351/world/Britain_agrees_to_lead_says_pe:.shtml

Britain agrees to lead, says peacekeeping troops could be in Afghanistan by weekend

By Jane Wardell, Associated Press, 12/17/2001 18:07

LONDON (AP) Britain will lead an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and the first troops could be on the ground in days, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday.

Blair told Parliament that Britain expects the U.N. Security Council to approve deployment in time to allow troops to land by Saturday the date an interim administration is to take power in Kabul.

Britain expects to contribute up to 1,500 troops, Blair said. He said the findings of a British military team now in Afghanistan will determine the force's size and composition.

''The situation in Afghanistan remains fragile, the new political process remains in its infancy,'' Blair said in a Parliament speech. ''There is therefore an urgent need to ensure that, as the war is being won, we play our part in securing the peace.''

''We are the nation best placed to give that leadership. That is why we have been asked to do it,'' he said.

In a sign of fraying political consensus on the campaign in Afghanistan, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith expressed ''deep misgivings'' about the proposed mission.

Duncan Smith said he feared that British troops would be involved in peacekeeping while the U.S.-led special forces were engaged in search and destroy operations against the remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban.

''There are, of course, going to be members of the Taliban who will find an opportunity to pick a target themselves in that peacekeeping process that may allow them to get their own back,'' he said.

Blair pledged the force would be ''properly protected at all times.''

In Kabul, the British military team, led by Maj. Gen. John McColl, was winding up its mission after meeting key figures in the new interim administration that will be headed by Hamid Karzai.

The U.N.-brokered agreement signed by four Afghan factions Dec. 5 established an interim administration to govern for six months and called for a multinational security force in Kabul initially and possibly elsewhere later on.

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel announced Friday that the European Union would contribute up to 4,000 European troops to the security force.

Blair said Argentina, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Jordan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Turkey had also indicated they were willing to contribute troops.

Blair had hesitated for more than a week over taking leadership of the multinational force.

The British have been trying to work out how the force will operate, and interact with the U.S.-led force fighting remnants of the Taliban and hunting for Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. They also wanted to secure Afghan approval.

Afghanistan's post-Taliban government informed the U.N. Security Council on Friday that it agreed to a multinational force so long as they do not use military force. Many council members want the force to be able to take military action if threatened.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Britain envisions leading the multinational force in a first phase that would last months not weeks and then handing the reins preferably to a Muslim nation.

After a brief stop in London for talks with the British Foreign Office's two senior Afghan experts, Karzai headed for Rome on Monday to meet with the exiled Afghan king.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001