Kabul, Afghanistan
NATO took command of the 5,000-member multinational security force in Afghanistan this week, the first time in the alliance’s 54-year history that it has deployed troops outside Europe. The alliance was originally conceived as a defensive organization to protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union. “This new mission is a reflection of NATO’s ongoing transformation and resolve to meet the security challenges of the 21st century,” said Alessandro Minuto Rizzo, deputy secretary-general of the alliance. The security force is now under the command of NATO Lt. Gen. Götz Gliemeroth, a German. Afghan President Hamid Karzai hopes that eventually NATO will deploy troops beyond the capital, Kabul, and into the unruly countryside, where warlords are competing for power. The U.S. is among 31 nations contributing to the force, but separately it has about 9,000 troops searching for remnants of the Taliban and al Qaida.
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