NATO Extends Anti-piracy Mission off Somalia

The alliance flotilla operating in the region will sail home at the end of the month. But ministers said they decided to dispatch a follow-on force known as Standing Maritime Force 2.

"Permanent groups from NATO are going to continue to be present ... in this complex challenge to eradicate piracy," Spanish Defense Minister Carme Chacon said.

A NATO flotilla has been stationed off Somalia since November. It was joined by an EU squadron, a U.S.-led task force, and ships from a number of other nations including China, India, Malaysia and Russia.

Their main task is to escort World Food Program vessels carrying food aid to Somalia. This week, a Portuguese frigate safely escorted two such ships.

"The World Food Program is very grateful to (NATO) for protecting these two ships against piracy on their trip to Mogadishu," said Peter Goossens, the U.N. agency's director for Somalia. "The total of 20,500 tons of food aboard the vessels is enough to feed 1.23 million people for a month."

The two-day meeting of defense ministers of NATO's 28 member states and 22 partner nations has been dominated by the war in Afghanistan, anti-piracy patrols and the situation in the newly independent nation of Kosovo.

Ministers are expected to approve a proposal to send three or four AWACS airborne radar planes to Afghanistan which will provide air traffic control for the increasing numbers of military jets and helicopters arriving in the theater of operations.

"I am confident that we will have a decision today on sending AWACS machines to Afghanistan to make flight security better," German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said.

The new commander of NATO and allied forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, attended the ministerial meeting Friday before flying to Kabul to take up his assignment.

"I assure you that I take the responsibility very, very seriously," McChrystal told the ministers.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired his last commander, and has said the war effort lacked focus and resources. He hand-picked McChrystal and named his own top military aide as the general's powerful deputy in one of the clearest signs yet that the Obama administration is gravely worried about the course of the eight-year war.

Ministers are also expected to finalize a plan to restructure the NATO command in Kabul to cope with the increasing numbers of troops flowing into the region.

The alliance has nearly doubled its force in Afghanistan -- known as ISAF -- in the past year to about 60,000 troops. At least 21,000 more U.S. soldiers have started arriving, and 5,000 mostly European soldiers will be deployed to help secure national elections there in August.

Plans call for two new intermediate headquarters to be set up as part of the international command in Kabul to handle day-to-day tactical operations and to oversee the training of Afghanistan's army and police.

"This will free up the ISAF commander to do strategic military activity in the context of more forces on the ground (and) greater engagement with other actors both in Afghanistan and the region," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.

Other items on the crowded agenda of the two-day meeting include setting NATO's budgetary priorities at a time of economic crisis and falling defense budgets, launching work on a new strategic concept for the alliance and restructuring the alliance command structure.

On Thursday, ministers decided to cut NATO's peacekeeping force in Kosovo from 15,000 to 10,000 troops in keeping with the improving security situation in that newly independent nation. NATO originally deployed 50,000 troops to Kosovo when it assumed control of the province following the brief war with Serbia in 1999.