Kabul mission: NATO force gets new US commander

KABUL:

US Marine General Joseph Dunford, expected to oversee the withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year, took control of the Nato-led mission on Sunday, in an elaborate ceremony which emphasised the country’s sovereignty.

Dunford takes over from US Marine General John Allen, who ended a 19-month tour which was arguably one of the most difficult periods in the war, now in its eleventh year.

“Today is not about change, it’s about continuity. What has not changed is the will of this coalition,” Dunford told a crowd of foreign and Afghan officials in the barricaded headquarters of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was absent from the change of command ceremony despite receiving an invitation from ISAF. A spokesman for Karzai declined to comment.

Allen, who directed ISAF’s transfer of most security across the country to the Afghan army and police, delivered an emotional speech stressing the nation’s sovereignty, an issue that has been a thorn in Karzai’s relationship with his Western backers.

“Afghanistan is no longer the place between empires,” Allen said, referring to a country where “imperial ambition and dynamics have played out ... for generation after generation”.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2013.