Still three years after Canada (the Brits plan to be out by 2015 but only “based on success on the ground”):

Franco Frattini, Italy’s foreign minister said its 3,400 troops will have left the country by 2014.

The Italian decision follows the withdrawal of Dutch troops earlier this year and the Canadian decision to leave next year, as commanders struggle to sure up an alliance which is still short of troops…

…summer 2011 for the start of a gradual drawdown of troops, with the intention of completing it by 2014,” he told an Italian newspaper.

Barack Obama’s announcement that American troops will also begin returning in July 2011 has been criticised for giving the Taliban hope they can simply wait for Nato to leave.

The Nato mission is still short of several hundred soldiers to train the Afghan forces [more here, no help to be expected from our government] supposed to replace them and Nato officials have been trying to persuade alliance members to stop announcing withdrawal dates.

And in the meantime the Italians are considering getting more aerially robust than us–our government has never even been willing to deploy our CF-18s:

Italy considers bombings after Afghan deaths

The defence minister said Sunday that he is considering authorizing bombings by Italian fighter jets in Afghanistan if Parliament backs the decision following the killing of four soldiers there.

Minister Ignazio La Russa told Sky TG24 TV Sunday that while Italy’s participation in the NATO mission in Afghanistan can’t change “from one day to the other,” its fighter jets must be able to bomb if necessary.

La Russa has withheld permission for aerial bombings in order to avoid mistakenly killing innocent civilians.

Four Italian soldiers died Saturday in a bomb and shooting attack on a convoy…

Update: Germans fighting in the north–in self-defence:

The Battle of Shahabuddin
Under Fire in Afghanistan’s Baghlan Province

One German officer fights the Taliban alongside Afghan soldiers he can’t always count on, risking his life for a peace few Germans believe is possible. Germans have seen the largest battles since World War II in Baghlan Province, and their leader is more optimistic than most about the war…

…
“I look the Afghans in the eyes every day. We have taken on a responsibility here,” says Andritzky, who has grown a beard for the mission. The Afghans like it, he says. He wears a checkered scarf around his neck, a gift from an Afghan soldier. “We can’t let the Afghans down, or else it’ll all have been in vain [emphasis added].”..

More on the north at the second part of this post.

Upperdate: The French, who do have a combat role, may be making progress:

FORWARD OPERATING BASE TORA, Afghanistan — Just east of Kabul lies a stark mountain moonscape that for centuries was home to gunmen who preyed on travelers and harassed invaders in the narrow mountain passes. As recently as last year, ambushes of NATO troops were not uncommon.

Now, the French soldiers responsible for the area say they believe that the situation has calmed so much that by next summer or even earlier, they would be comfortable handing primary responsibility for this district, Sarobi, in eastern Kabul Province, to Afghan troops.

“Of course this is a political decision, but the district of Sarobi could be transferred to Afghan control not later than the summer of 2011; I think even by February it could be ready,” said Brig. Gen. Pierre Chavancy, the commander of Task Force Lafayette [actually La Fayette], the French brigade in Afghanistan with 2,500 soldiers…

The French battalion commander in charge of Sarobi, Col. Jerome Goisque, whose Forward Operating Base Tora looks out across the mountains and whose soldiers patrol its valleys, is more reserved. He said it would probably not be possible for a foreign civilian to travel on the roads. “It is quiet, but sometimes you have ambushes or exchanges of fire,” he said. “But if we were not there it would be worse.”..

Naturally we see nothing about the Italians, Germans or French in our blinkered major media.

Mark
Ottawa