US President George W. Bush will not demand Germany send combat troops to southern Afghanistan, but the NATO commander in the strife torn country still wants Berlin to do more.
Two German soldiers in Afghanistan were seriously injured and a third was slightly wounded in an attack west of Kunduz, the German military said on Thursday.
Six years since the initial deployment of German troops to Afghanistan, politicians in Berlin have started to speak of a gradual withdrawal. A defence ministry official also says that Germany will not cave to US pressure to expand its presence there.
Hundreds of peace activists took the streets of major German cities on Saturday in traditional Easter marches. This year, the focus was on Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Turkish-German man who allegedly killed four in a suicide attack in Afghanistan in early March had been under watch by the German domestic intelligence service for years because of connection with Islamists.
The German government’s envoy for human rights issues, Günter Nooke, has criticized that US intelligence agency the CIA will still be allowed to use controversial interrogation techniques like simulated drowning.
Germany is to send an extra 200 soldiers to Afghanistan as part of a NATO Rapid Reaction Force. The troops will be based in northern Afghanistan, replacing 250 Norwegian troops who have been there fore two years this summer. Despite substantial pressure from the US and NATO, Germany will not send soldiers to southern Afghanistan to fight the Taliban insurgency.
