Peacekeeping deal limits role of foreign troops

Britain yesterday bowed to Afghan demands to water down a multinational peacekeeping force by agreeing to restrict its role and authority.

Weeks of wrangling between military officials on both sides ended with a deal that will allow up to 4,500 peacekeepers to enter Kabul, but they will be in the shadow of Northern Alliance troops.

The bulk of the force, drawn from up to 16 countries, was expected to join a vanguard of several dozen royal marines within weeks to bolster Afghanistan's fragile interim government.

Britain had wanted a robust mission to reassure those Afghans nervous of the Northern Alliance, a military force with patchy discipline which dominates the government.

The deal agreed yesterday allowed the Northern Alliance to keep troops in barracks in Kabul, in breach of an original pledge to withdraw its soldiers from the capital.

The deal was initialled by Major-General John McColl, who will head the British-led force, and Younis Qanooni, the interior minister. It will be signed by countries contributing troops to the force.

Diplomatic sources said the UN-mandated peacekeepers would keep a low profile and not challenge the authority of the Northern Alliance during joint patrols or checkpoints.

"This basically gives us the green light," a British official said.

Grey areas about the precise duties and powers of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) suggested that its true role will not be known until significant numbers of troops are deployed.

An advance party of some 60 British troops arrived in Kabul yesterday to set up the headquarters of the British-led force. They included Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, commander of the 16 Air Assault Brigade, who will lead the 1,500 troops of the British contingent expected to be deployed in Kabul and Bagram, the airbase north of the Afghan capital, by the end of this month.

Despite the deal, senior Ministry of Defence officials say that the force will have robust rules of engagement in a security role which, they add, will have a "soft profile".

A priority for the Isaf will be helping to reopen Kabul's international airport to civilian aircraft, hopefully within weeks, one source said.

Initially Britain and Germany were thought to have wanted a force of up to 10,000, but Gen eral Mohammed Fahim, the Northern Alliance defence minister, wanted only a 10th of that. Haggling over the final figure of 4,500 delayed the agreement. The British embassy said another cause of the delay was correcting translation errors in the agreement text.

The Northern Alliance felt that a weaker force would be less likely to erode the influence it has savoured since the Taliban crumbled. The mainly ethnic Tajik alliance has allowed rival ethnic groups to share power but wants its soldiers to stay in Kabul, which it believes it conquered, notwithstanding helpful US air strikes.

Ethnic Pashtuns have com plained of theft and intimidation by alliance troops and welcomed the prospect of foreign peacekeepers. "My uncle's car was stolen last week and in this neighbourhood soldiers have raided homes looking for money. Of course I want the Britishers to come," said Mohammed Qasim, 35.

But Kabul is perhaps the safest part of Afghanistan, prompting bemusement that the peacekeepers will stay in the capital, rather than patrol roads that have become infested with bandits.