Pres. Hamid Karzai with NZ Troops. Credit: NZ Army.

By Rich Bowden

New Zealand has confirmed it has sent SAS troops into Afghanistan, the first time elite NZ troops have served in the country since 2006.

NZ Prime Minister John Key announced Monday that 71 New Zealand Special Air Service (SAS) troops have already arrived in the war-torn country, the first stage of three rotations of SAS troops during the next 18 months.

Mr Key, who is to meet NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to discuss Afghanistan later this week, said the assignment was dangerous and told the NZ people to prepare for possible casualties.

He confirmed that the elite troops were being deployed to support the current Afghan government which has been accused of widespread voter fraud in recent elections, adding there was little choice.

“Yes, we are supporting that administration,” he told reporters.

“The alternative is that we are left with a country where control is ceded to the Taliban, where in all probability more terrorist activities will be planned and scheme will be hatched.”

The deployment comes as a leaked report from Commander of U.S forces in Afghanistan,General Stanley McChrystal, warned that if additional troops are not sent, the war could be lost.

“Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) – while Afghan security capacity matures – risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible,” McChrystal wrote in his assessment, which was obtained by the Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, NATO Commander. Credit: US Army

The assessment has increased pressure on the White House to agree to an additional troop surge after already deploying an additional 21,000 under the current president’s tenure. President Obama told reporters last week that he was “uncomfortable” about sending further forces until he had “absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be.”

Australia

Meanwhile Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has said his country was not expecting any any request from the U.S.  for additional troops in the wake of the leaked McChrystal report.

“We have not received a request for a further troop or military contribution and I’m not anticipating one,” Mr Smith told reporters in New York.

“We’re not expecting that any decisions will be made quickly in the aftermath of General McChrystal’s review,” the foreign minister told reporters in New York. However Smith said he was open to suggestions of increased civilian deployment stating that he was: “…certainly open to further consideration of assistance in those areas.”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also appeared to rule any increase in Australian troops when he said in an interview with CNN Sunday that current numbers were “about right.””We believe that our current commitment’s about right and I note again for the record that in the six or nine months since President Obama has been in office, we’ve already increased our contribution by about 50 per cent.”

Tags: afghanistan, Australia, John Key, mcchrystal, NZ, SAS troops