Washington: Top US military commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus has met sharp resistance from President Hamid Karzai to a US plan to assist Afghan villagers in fighting the Taliban on their own, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.
The Post said the first meeting last week between the new commander and the Afghan President turned tense after Karzai renewed his objections to the plan to assist the villagers.
The idea of recruiting villagers into local defence programs is a key part of the US military strategy in Afghanistan, and Karzai`s stance poses an early challenge to Petraeus, the report said.
Senior US officials say the United States would like to expand the program to about two dozen sites across Afghanistan and are hoping to overcome Karzai`s concerns, the paper noted.
But the issue is delicate to many who fear that such experiments could lead Afghanistan further into warlordism and out-of-control militias, The Post said.
Petraeus formally took over command of the Afghan war last week after President Barack Obama sacked General Stanley McChrystal over an interview to Rolling Stone magazine in which he and his staff made disparaging comments about Vice President Joe Biden and other senior administration figures.
Last December, Obama announced he was sending an extra 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in an effort to regain the upper hand against a resurgent Taliban, and said he would begin withdrawing from the country in mid-2011.
Bureau Report
