Germany OKs Up to 1,200 Troops
BERLIN — German legislators on Saturday approved a six-month deployment of as many as 1,200 troops for an international force established to protect Afghanistan’s new government.
Opposition deputies joined most members of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s governing coalition to pass the measure.
The international force approved Thursday by the U.N. Security Council will have 3,000 to 5,000 troops under British command. Already, British marines were deployed in the streets of the capital, Kabul, when the 30-member interim government led by Hamid Karzai took power Saturday.
At the special session of Germany’s lower house, the vote was 538 to 43 in favor of the German deployment, giving the broad support that Schroeder had sought. Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping said the first Germans would probably be sent before Dec. 31.
Four members of the Greens, Schroeder’s junior partner, abstained from the vote. But the party’s most prominent foe of the anti-terror campaign, leftist lawyer Hans-Christian Stroebele, said he backed the latest deployment because the Afghan force is under a U.N. umbrella.
The former East German communists voted against sending German troops. One member of Schroeder’s Social Democrats also opposed the move.
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