Nato lashes European allies over Afghanistan

The head of Nato and US Vice President Joe Biden joined forces Saturday to urge European allies to step up efforts in Afghanistan, as the United States prepares to send in thousands more troops.
Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned the Europeans that they were undermining their leadership credentials and upsetting the balance within the world's biggest military alliance, as it battles a Taliban-led insurgency.
"I am frankly concerned when I hear the United States is planning a major commitment for Afghanistan, but other allies ruling out doing more," he said, at a major international security conference in Munich, southern Germany.
"That is not good for the political balance of this mission. That is not good for the balance inside the North Atlantic alliance," he said. "Leadership and burdens -- they go together."
Scheffer, who did not single out any nation, warned that the failure to step up "makes calls for Europe's voice to be heard in Washington perhaps a bit more hollow than they should be."
New US President Barack Obama has singled out Afghanistan as his main front in the "war on terrorism" and plans to deploy 30,000 more US troops there over the next 18 months.
"A deteriorating situation in the region poses a security threat to all of us, not just the United States," Biden said, as Washington reviews its policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He said a comprehensive strategy was needed "for which we all take responsibility, that brings together our civilian and military resources, that prevents a terrorist safe haven, and that helps Afghans develop the capacity to secure their own future."
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is embarked on its biggest and most-ambitious operation ever trying to spread the influence of the weak Afghan government and help foster reconstruction.
But the Taliban and its backers, including al-Qaeda, drug lords and criminal gangs, have been waging an increasingly tenacious insurgency, using neighbouring Pakistan as a rear base.
Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States have troops on the frontline of that fight in southern Afghanistan, but other allies insist that reconstruction is as important as combat and refuse to redeploy.
Scheffer commended a newspaper editorial ahead of the conference penned jointly by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which they called for "a new transatlantic balance".
They insisted in it that "the United States and Europe share leadership and burdens more fairly."
But both nations have ruled out sending more troops. France has some 2,800 personnel in Afghanistan, while Germany, in an election year, has set a ceiling of 4,500, most of whom are based in the relatively quiet north.
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra urged the European Union to look beyond its backyard when trying to secure peace in Europe.
"The time is right to strengthen European defence and security by committing more financial resources, more military capacities and, most of all, more political will," he told the conference.
"Afghanistan will be a real test here," he added.
On Wednesday, Britain also scolded its Nato allies for not stepping forward to share combat duties, warning that there could be no freeloaders in the fight against the insurgents.
"An alliance worth its name must be one that shares the burden of membership equally amongst its members, because there can be no freeloading when it comes to collective security," British Defence Secretary John Hutton said.
The challenge facing Nato, the European Union, United Nations and other main world institutions is the focus of talks here on Sunday, which will include Afghan President Hamid Karzai.