Jawad Calls Mehsud's Death a Major Achievement
Pajhwok Afghan News
August 8, 2009
WASHINGTON (PAN): The death of Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in a drone attack early this week is a major accomplishment not only for the United States, but also for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Afghan Ambassador to the US has said.
Said T. Jawad told Fox News in an interview on Friday: "It's a major accomplishment not only for the United States, but also for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here's a criminal that had a lot of blood on his hands, the blood of the Pakistanis, Afghans and international forces.
"That will make our job in Afghanistan easier because if there is no support for Taliban outside Afghanistan, they will not be able to resist for long in Afghanistan," the ambassador argued.
Afghanistan had made significant progress in building its national army and police force, noted Jawad, who acknowledged there was a major shortage of trainers in his country.
"We are short of at least 4,000 trainers for the Afghan National Army (ANA) and police force. In fact, a significant number of the troops going to Afghanistan in September will be allocated to train more Afghan police and army officers," he pointed out.
Responding to a question, Jawad said: We have been in close contact with US officials and the U.S. military in Afghanistan. It's now clear that some of these trainers who are supposed to be coming from NATO countries will not be available soon."
Afghanistan was facing serious challenges, he said, adding the people were resilient. We are used to those challenges. The efforts are on the right track in Afghanistan. We have the right ingredient for success. We are seeing an increased presence of the U.S. military in Afghanistan."
