Isle-born general places
focus on Afghan elections

BAGRAM, Afghanistan » The new operational commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan promised yesterday to protect the country's parliamentary elections in the fall and played down the unsuccessful hunt for Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida and Taliban leaders.

Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya

Hawaii-born Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya took command of the 18,000-strong U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan as American troops based in Europe rotate into the country ahead of parliamentary elections expected in September.

"We will continue to focus our energy, No. 1, on supporting the government of Afghanistan's vision," Kamiya, a 1972 graduate of Saint Louis School, told reporters at Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul. "We have the election coming up ... and that will be one of our major focuses."

Afghanistan last year passed a new constitution and held a landmark presidential election won in a landslide by Hamid Karzai despite threats from Taliban militants to disrupt the ballot.

U.S. commanders say their operations helped prevent attacks on the vote. Since then, troops have increasingly focused on supporting local officials and encouraging reconstruction in former Taliban strongholds.

However, fugitives such as bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Omar remain at large, as hundreds of militants still mount ambushes and bombings on Afghan and foreign troops.

"The success of this mission should not be predicated upon the amount of fugitives or threat groups we remove," Kamiya said. "Instead, it should be focused on increasing the capacity, increasing the reach of the Afghan central government."

Kamiya, the commander of the Vicenza, Italy-based Southern European Task Force (Airborne), took over from Maj. Gen. Eric Olson of the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division at a ceremony in an aircraft hangar that also was attended by the overall U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno.

Barno told a news conference that the hunt for bin Laden and other militant leaders would continue, but he acknowledged that the trail remained cold.

"We don't know where he is. If we had a good definition, we'd obviously have apprehended him," Barno said of the al-Qaida leader, who some analysts suspect may be hiding near the rugged border with Pakistan.

"We will be successful eventually, but it is a very, very difficult challenge given the immensity of the territory involved, the mountainous terrain, the tough weather."

Barno, who also is expected to leave Afghanistan soon, suggested that the insurgency maintained by Taliban-led militants was losing steam.