Afghanistan

Afghanistan has always been a dangerous place, and it may be getting more dangerous both for ordinary Afghans and for the foreigners helping steer this long-suffering country towards stability and democracy. The suicide bombers who have killed 25 people in three days are an alarming novelty for President Hamid Karzai and for the Nato countries in the 9,000-strong International Security Assistance Force. That is especially so for the Dutch government, facing opposition to a new troop deployment and a transatlantic crisis if parliament in The Hague says no. Now concerns are starting to be heard in Britain, where Tony Blair has pledged some 3,000 more men, most for Helmand province in the volatile south, where the Taliban and drug traffickers are active. MPs on the Commons defence committee showed yesterday that there is a lot to be worried about.

The shadow of Iraq hangs over Afghanistan, but there are important differences between the two. Nato is in Afghanistan under UN mandate and at the request of the Kabul government. There is consensus across the 26-member alliance - including France, Germany and Belgium, which all opposed the war in Iraq - that there must be no return to the failed state left after the Soviet withdrawal, when the dreadful Taliban regime tolerated the activities of al-Qaida with devastating consequences for Afghanistan and, after 9/11, the rest of the world. Separately, these and other countries also take part in the US-led counter-insurgency campaign on the rugged border with Pakistan.

The existence of two distinct but closely related military missions in the same place is one reason why there are misgivings about the expanded Nato deployment. Another is resentment - reflecting diminishing post-Cold War alliance solidarity - that Canadians, British and Dutch are being asked to replace US troops who are going home because of their larger and unpopular commitment in Iraq. MPs are rightly worried about chains of command, rules of engagement, confusion between reconstruction and (riskier) combat duties, and the lack of guarantees that anyone captured by British forces will not end up being tortured or sent to Guantanamo Bay. There is uncertainty too about the "anti-narcotics" element of the strategy and how that squares with the fact that (US-tolerated) and heroin-rich warlords remain so powerful. Afghanistan deserves our help - more rather than less. But the British public and armed forces deserve clearer explanations of what they are being asked to do and for how long they are likely to be doing it.