US Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ comments of the previous week in which he questioned the role of NATO forces in the south of the country elicited strong reactions from the Dutch authorities, who have a strong contingent operating in the area. Dutch defense secretary, Eimert van Middelkoop asserted that his country’s troops were operating in a professional manner1. Secretary Gates reacting to the criticism affirmed that NATO forces were playing a “significant and powerful role.” Reports noted that he had also apologized to the Dutch Defence Minister.

The U.K. Defence Secretary Des Browne admitted that international troop commitment in Afghanistan could last ‘for decades’. Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit to Kabul the previous week had pledged British troop commitment for the ‘next five years2.’

In other developments, a suicide bomb attack at Kabul’s only 5-star hotel killed 6 people on January 14 and Japan resumed its refueling missions in the Indian Ocean in support of US operations in Afghanistan.

• 1. “Gates’s comments on NATO’s Afghan force anger Dutch,” The New York Times¸ January 17, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/world/europe/17gates.html?ref=todayspaper
• 2. “Afghan war may take decades, says UK defence secretary,” Yahoo News¸ January 15, 2008, at http://in.news.yahoo.com/ani/20080114/r_t_ani_wl_europe/twl-afghan-war-m...