Send page Print

Asia / Comment

Afghanistan: what did the spanish soldiers die for?

13/09/2005 By Barnett Rubin

The death of 17 Spanish soldiers in what appears to have been an accidental helicopter crash near the city of Herat in Western Afghanistan on the 16th of August 2005 has caused understandable pain to the people of Spain.

It is important that they should understand the mission of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in which they were serving, so that they appreciate the worth of the risks they are taking and the burdens they are bearing. 

I participated as a member of the UN team in the Bonn negotiations of November-December 2001 that produced the current political arrangement in Afghanistan and that also requested the UN Security Council to authorize a multinational military force to assist the authorities in Afghanistan in providing security in Kabul and, eventually, in other provinces to which ISAF would expand.

This request was the product of many years of reflection on the reasons that previous attempts to reach a political settlement of the wars in Afghanistan had failed.

Download the full version of this publication, available in English (72 kB)
Spanish (70 kB)

Publishing groups

Afghanistan and Pakistan: a region in crisis

Keywords

Civil war External intervention Terrorism

Bio author: Barnett Rubin

Barnett R. Rubin is considered one of the world's foremost experts on Afghanistan and the surrounding region, as well as on conflict prevention and peace building. He is also deputy chair of the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, a member of the Steering Committee of Human Rights Watch/ Europe and Central Asia, the Executive Board of Human Rights Watch/Asia, the Board of the Open Society Institute's Central Eurasia Project, the Scientific Committee of the Fondation Médecins Sans Frontières, and the Board of the International League for Human Rights.