The general from the Netherlands who recently ended his run as the NATO commander for southern Afghanistan says he's confident that recent troop surges into the country will halt the ongoing Taliban insurgency.
Maj.-Gen. Mart de Kruif, the former head of Regional Command South, says the recent surge in U.S. troops is working to maintain order in the area.
"We saw proof of it last year in July when we saw 20,000 police and U.S. forces deployed to southern Afghanistan. They made a huge difference," de Kruif told CTV's Canada AM on Friday.
"So I'm quite sure that additional forces that will be deployed there will really change the situation."
U.S. President Barack Obama announced last month that an additional 30,000 U.S. troops would be deployed in Afghanistan to fight the insurgency. The reinforcements will take the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to more than 100,000.
De Kruif, who is in Ottawa this week as part of a tour of NATO countries and its partners in the 42-country International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said NATO forces have built considerable expertise in Afghanistan's volatile south, where the Taliban insurgency is the strongest.
He added that the approach of clearing areas of Taliban insurgents, maintaining a strong round-the-clock military presence in those areas to keep insurgents from returning, and then bringing in development to attract popular support has finally been effective in securing the region.
"I'm quite confident that overall we, NATO and Afghanistan got the concept right of 'shape, clear, hold and build.' It's a very comprehensive approach between military effects and civilian effects on the ground," he said.
"And the Canadians have proved very capable to do so in Kandahar City, one of the most difficult regions there is. What needs to be done now is to reinforce the concept, get the forces on the ground. And I'm quite sure that in a couple of years from now, we will see significant effect of that."
The Netherlands currently has around 2,000 troops in Afghanistan and they have suffered 21 casualties. That compares to Canada, which has 2,800 troops in the country and 138 military casualties, as well as one diplomat, one journalist and two aid workers.
The Dutch will be the first NATO partner to pull out of Afghanistan, with plans to leave in 2010. Canada will pull out in 2011. Obama has also mentioned 2011 as the year for beginning an American pullout.
De Kruif says he knows well how foreign troops can bring stability to a region and help it get back on its feet, because his own mother was one of those liberated by Canadian soldiers during the Second World War.
"When I was young, my mother always took me to the Canadian war cemetery in Groesbeck. More than 5,000 Canadian soldiers are buried in Dutch soil. And that told me that sometimes, freedom comes at a price. Sometimes you have to fight for freedom," de Kruif said.
"That's what Canadian soldiers did in liberating my country so that I could live in peace. And hopefully, the Afghan people will get the same thing a few years from now."
