NATO to take new tasks in Afghanistan

NATO's senior official in Afghanistan Mark Sedwill has said foreign forces will remain in the war-wrecked country far beyond 2014 to take new tasks.

The NATO official made the remark at a press conference on Tuesday, adding that a new phase in the war will begin in 2014 despite the planned handover of security to Afghan forces, Xinhua news agency reported.

Sedwill further explained that the tasks and roles of NATO forces would undergo a change and stressed that after 2014 priority would shift to providing socio-economic support for the war-torn country rather than military and security aid.

Last November, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that NATO would start handing over control to Afghan security forces from the beginning of 2011 and the transition would be completed by the end of 2014.

Despite the presence of some 150,000 US-led foreign troops in Afghanistan, the war-hit country remains devastated by militancy as well as persistent bombings and ground attacks by foreign troops that supposedly target militants but leave many civilians dead.

The rising number of military casualties comes with a comparable rise in Afghan civilian death toll. The latest report on Afghan civilian deaths from the United Nations shows a 20 percent increase in the first 10 months of 2010. read more