RIGA, Latvia — NATO became a victim of mission creep in Afghanistan as the international community upped its aims from fighting extremists to rebuilding the conflict-torn country over two decades, the military organization’s civilian leader said Wednesday.
“That broader task proved much more difficult, so we must ensure that our levels of ambition remain realistic,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after chairing a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Latvia where a report on lessons learned in Afghanistan was discussed.
NATO took over the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2003, almost two years after a U.S.-led coalition invaded the country to oust the Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader who masterminded the Sept. 11 terror attacks and was shot dead in Pakistan in 2011.
The international force helped build up an Afghan army said to be around 300,000-strong, although the army was so riddled with corruption that its real troop numbers were unclear. Whatever its size, the Afghan army withered within days in August in the face of a Taliban offensive.