WASHINGTON (AFP) –
Killing or capturing Osama bin Laden is the key to defeating the Al-Qaeda terror network, the NATO commander in Afghanistan told US legislators in testimony on Capitol Hill.
General Stanley McChrystal added that the additional 30,000 troops ordered by President Barack Obama would turn back insurgent momentum in Afghanistan "by this time next year" and cut off the Taliban from the population.
Testifying Tuesday about the US military surge of forces in Afghanistan, he said of Bin Laden: "I believe he is an iconic figure at this point whose survival emboldens Al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world."
"It would not defeat Al-Qaeda to have him captured or killed, but I don't think that we can finally defeat Al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed," McChrystal told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Related article: US general confident on surge
US officials believe that bin Laden -- considered the chief mastermind of the attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people -- is hiding along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border.
US ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, also speaking at the hearing, said that capturing or killing bin Laden "does remain important to the American people -- indeed, the people of the world."
McChrystal and Eikenberry testified one week after President Barack Obama ordered an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
US national security adviser James Jones told CNN on Sunday that the latest intelligence reports suggest that Bin Laden "is somewhere inside north Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border, hiding in very, very rough mountainous area, generally ungoverned."
However Defense Secretary Robert Gates, also speaking Sunday, said in an interview that Washington did not know where bin Laden was and had lacked reliable information on his whereabouts for years. Related article: Gates in Afghanistan
A recent Senate report said Bin Laden was "within the grasp" of American forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements.
McChrystal, head of US and allied forces in Afghanistan, predicted that the US troop increase would reverse the momentum of Taliban insurgents and ensure their ultimate defeat.
By mid-2011 "it will be clear to the Afghan people that the insurgency will not win, giving them the chance to side with their government."
The US general said he was confident of success because the Taliban remained unpopular, and that Afghans did not see foreign troops as occupiers but as a "necessary bridge to future security and stability."
The Taliban "are not a national liberation front that people inside are just waiting for their success," the general said. "They succeed largely on their coercion."
McChrystal presented a united front at the hearing with Eikenberry, despite public clashes between the two over war strategy that had played out over the past weeks in leaked news reports.
Obama's plan combines a troop buildup with a target date of July 2011 for the start of a gradual US withdrawal, a provision that has drawn criticism from opposition Republicans who say it plays into the hands of the enemy.
Though McChrystal told lawmakers he did not propose the withdrawal target date, he said setting a timeline for a handover to Afghans posed no military problem -- but acknowledged that the insurgents could misrepresent the date for propaganda purposes.
Obama's promise to begin withdrawing troops in mid-2011 has sparked concern in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan that insurgents could wait out the surge and attack a pared down force in 18 months' time.
McChrystal warned that coalition forces faced "a complex and resilient insurgency," and that the most difficult task would be improving the credibility of local and national government.
The general also said he was satisfied with the reinforcements, and that he did not expect to ask for more forces within a year.
As a first step in the troop buildup, a contingent of 1,500 Marines will begin arriving next week in the southern Helmand province, where commanders hope to turn the tide against Islamist insurgents.
With thousands of troops due to pour into the country's south, the insurgents will face long-odds in combat and likely be forced to turn to more attacks using homemade bombs, a senior military official told reporters.
"If they try to contest with any kind of head-on-head forces, they'll get swamped in the south, and they'll just get hammered," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A survey out Tuesday showed more Americans backing the war since Obama presented his plan last week. Support for the mission jumped nine points to 57 percent against 37 percent opposed, according to the Quinnipiac University poll.
