The new centre-left government is facing divisions within its ranks over renewed funding for NATO-led military operations in Afghanistan. The government has approved financing for Italy’s military mission in Afghanistan in the face of opposition from far-left allies in the ruling coalition. But the decision is being debated in parliament from Monday. A vote is due July 25.

PM Romano Prodi has decided to withdraw troops from Iraq by the year end, and many green and left members want Italian troops also out of Afghanistan. But there is a new element to the government approval. “Within the refinancing operations of the military mission, we will introduce a permanent monitoring activity in the parliament regarding all the international commitments of Italy, Afghanistan included,” Marina Sereni, senior leader in the ruling Olive Tree coalition said.

This monitoring mechanism “will target in particular our supporting role of the US mission, considering the possibility and timing for a gradual exit from it, while confirming our intention to bear out the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) mission together with the European partners,” she added.

Italy supports the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan with around 1,300 soldiers. The Isaf mission is led by Gen David Richards from Britain.

One ISAF aim is to maintain security in Afghanistan and facilitate institutional development through humanitarian aid and reconstruction. But ISAF also supports US-led Operation Enduring Freedom against international terrorism arising in the Afghan region.

The growing ambiguity over the two military initiatives — the first considered more ‘civil oriented’ where the second is evidently military — is at the core of an ongoing dispute in Italy.

“The role of military units in the country is extremely doubtful,” Nino Sergi, secretary-general of Intersos, one of the biggest Italian NGOs working in Afghanistan said. “They include fighting forces, stabilisation forces and reconstruction forces. But in the end that could mean they are none of these things.” The Afghan population, tired by years of war, do not trust any of them, he said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Rome on July 12 in the middle of the ongoing dispute. Annan spoke of “the excellent collaboration and ties established with Italy” in supporting the Afghan mission.

In an interview to the daily Il Sole 24 Ore, US President George Bush urged Prodi’s government to stay with its NATO allies in Afghanistan to help rebuild the country. “Whoever has to decide whether to stay or go from Afghanistan should look at the consequences of failure and take into account what are the benefits of freedom for the Afghanistanis,” he was quoted as saying. But some reports from Afghanistan speak a different language.

“Kabul is overcome by delinquency, prostitution, drug consumption, pollution and inaccessible prices, and foreign embassies are just like bunkers,” Gino Strada, chief surgeon and director of the international medical relief organisation Emergency wrote from Kabul in the daily La Repubblica last week. He has been working in Afghanistan since 1999. Strada has been arguing that all foreign troops should leave the country. “Are we sure that five years ago the situation was worse?” — IPS