Spain mulls sending more troops to Afghanistan

Madrid – Spain will consider sending more troops to Afghanistan if the security situation in the country merits it following last month’s general election, Spanish Defence Minister Carme Chacon said Friday.

"If the post-election security conditions justify an increase in troops, I will go to parliament and request it," she said in an interview broadcast on private television station Antena 3.

Spain has about 1,230 troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of the 64,500-strong, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which is supporting the beleaguered Afghan government.

About 450 of them were sent to provide security for the Afghan presidential elections on August 20 and are supposed to return after the results are known on September 17.

Late last year Spain’s parliament lifted a 3,000-troop limit on how many soldiers the country can deploy overseas.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was elected in 2004 on a promise to pull Spain out of the US-led coalition in Iraq but he has continued to support the deployment of Spanish troops to Afghanistan on the grounds that the mission in the country, unlike the invasion of Iraq, has a UN mandate.

Spanish troops killed 13 insurgents on Thursday while repelling an attack in Badghis province in western Afghanistan that lasted about six hours.

"The attack on Thursday against Spanish troops is one of the most serious attacks which they have faced since they arrived in Afghanistan seven years ago," said Chacon.

"We are very conscious, just as are the soldiers on the ground, that we are permanently on maximum alert and that this mission is the hardest, most complex and riskiest that Spain is carrying out abroad right now," she added.

AFP / Expatica