AFP - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has said that suicide bombers would not defeat the military alliance's efforts to ensure democracy prevails in Afghanistan.

Such tactics proved that Taliban rebels could not defeat multinational forces through conventional warfare, he added Thursday.

Earlier Thursday, a suicide car bomb exploded in the southern Afghan town of Lashkar Gah, wounding a "small number" of British troops and at least four Afghans, according to the Ministry of Defence.

De Hoop Scheffer told BBC radio: "The Taliban and the other spoilers of the process of nation-building and democracy in Afghanistan are having to go with these kinds of horrible tactics -- improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers and so on -- because they know they can't beat NATO in other ways.

"I can assure you they will not beat NATO -- neither the UK nor other forces - by employing these tactics," said the Dutchman, who was in London to meet Prime Minister Tony Blair and attend conference on challenges for future leaders.

NATO has appealed for member states to provide additional soldiers to bolster the 31,000 troops stationed in the country.

The alliance has faced a spike in violence linked to the hardline Taliban movement which the US-led coalition toppled from government in late 2001.

De Hoop Scheffer welcomed recent pledges of troops from Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Denmark and Canada, but acknowledged there was "competition for forces" due to multinational deployments in Iraq, Congo and Lebanon.

"I am not completely satisfied, because we always can do better if we have more forces, but since the call went out... we have seen a lot of nations stepping up to the plate. We are not entirely there yet," the secretary general said.

"If we fail, then Afghanistan will come to us. It will be a breeding ground for terrorists again."

Britain's Lieutenant General David Richards, the commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, has said that the coming months could see a "tipping point" with locals switching their allegiance to the Taliban.

But De Hoop Scheffer said: "We should be a bit careful to impose deadlines on ourselves.

"But I agree with General Richards that it is of great importance to win the battle for hearts and minds.

"He is right when he says that a number of people in Afghanistan are sitting on the fence and looking how things will further develop."

Printer Friendly Version | E-mail this to a friend

digg