Spanish minister warns about problems in Afghanistan

Europe News

Oct 8, 2009, 13:12 GMT

Madrid - Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Thursday that 'things are not going well' for the NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan and urged the participating countries to find a 'joint solution.' Rubalcaba made the comments one day after corporal Cristo Ancor Cabello became the 26th Spanish soldier to be killed in Afghanistan. Sixty-two soldiers flying back home to Spain also died when their plane crashed in Turkey in 2003. Most of the countries participating in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had a sense that the situation in Afghanistan had become more complicated than they had previously imagined, Rubalcaba told the national television channel TVE. The minister described the ISAF mission as 'very dangerous,' but rejected a comparison between it and the Iraq conflict. Cabello was killed when the vehicle he was travelling in hit an explosive device in western Afghanistan on Wednesday. The death of the 24-year-old soldier prompted calls from regionalist and far-left parties to reconsider Spain's strategy in Afghanistan. Madrid recently decided to increase its ISAF contingent by 220 to about 1,000 soldiers, partly in an attempt to increase the security of its troops in the Asian country.

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