NNATO defence ministers have approved a mission to train the Afghan police in paramilitary skills in a bid to cut the force’s soaring death rate. But they warned that heavy fighting lies ahead in the country as Western forces push deeper into areas which the Taliban once held. “We have agreed on the implementation of the NATO training mission. ... It will also include (paramilitary) gendarmerie training for the Afghan national police,” NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after two days of talks with alliance ministers in Brussels. NATO is keen to strengthen Afghanistan’s security forces so that it can eventually pull its own troops out of the country.
Spanish Defence Minister Carme Chacon said that coordination between EU and NATO forces had been very good so far, and that this should continue. “We are talking about an immense stretch of sea, so all the efforts of the EU, NATO and third countries are necessary. Our efforts will go towards making sure that NATO continues to work with the (EU) mission,” she said. Ahead of the meeting, NATO officials said that they hoped ministers would approve a new, dedicated anti-piracy mission, to deploy as early as July. They were also expected to agree to reduce the size of NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR, by around one-third.
The growing efficiency of the European Union’s police mission in Kosovo and the increase in strength of the lightly-armed Kosovo Security Force means that “We can have a transition to the concept of a deterrent presence,” Jung said. “That would mean, in the first phase, that we would go from roughly 15,000 to around 10,000 towards the end of the year,” he said. Denmark’s Defence Minister Soren Gade called the stabilisation of Kosovo a “success story” but stressed that “even though there will be a reduction of troops, there will still be a NATO presence there.” The question of reducing KFOR’s strength took on political urgency in March, when Chacon told Spain’s 500-plus troops in Kosovo that they would soon be home.
Spain has not recognised Kosovo’s independence, making it diplomatically difficult to support the country’s state-building. But the announcement provoked outrage among NATO allies, who said that they had not been consulted, and that the alliance had always held a strategy of “in together, out together.” Chacon was unrepentant, saying that Spain was pleased by the impending decision to cut KFOR down to size.  “We are thus accomplishing what we announced on March 19, and also announced to the coalition,” she said. According to the latest NATO figures, KFOR currently counts 13,829 troops from 25 NATO states - all its members except Iceland and newcomers Albania and Croatia - and from Armenia, Austria, Finland, Ireland, Morocco, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.
Pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden have soared over the last 18 months. According to the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC), attacks increased more than seven-fold between 2007 and 2008, jumping from 13 to 92. After Somali pirates captured a Ukrainian freighter laden with Soviet tanks and military equipment on September 26, NATO decided to send a fleet to the Gulf to make it safe for shipping.
The fleet of seven ships began operations in late October, focusing on convoying merchant vessels and World Food Programme aid ships. It handed over to a European Union force of six frigates on December 8. But pirate attacks continued to surge in the first half of this year. According to the PRC, there have been close on 150 attacks and attempted boardings since January - more than the total number of attacks in the area in the last five years put together.
In early March, NATO therefore decided to divert seven warships, bound on a diplomatic mission to Pakistan, Singapore and Australia, to anti-piracy duties in the Gulf alongside the EU fleet. That mission is set to end in late June. However, NATO insiders point out that the alliance is handicapped by legal considerations: each warship acts according to its national legislation, and some legal systems have no provisions for dealing with pirates apprehended in international waters. That led to a situation on April 18 in which three NATO warships and two helicopters caught seven pirates after an all-night chase, but then had to release them “according to national regulations.” On March 6, the EU solved the same legal conundrum by agreeing a prisoner transfer system with Kenya in return for financial aid. NATO officials complain that their organisation, whose budget is roughly one-sixtieth of that of the EU, simply does not have the resources to offer a similar deal.