NATO will apply "severe military pressure" to the Haqqani network in Afghanistan, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday, in the wake of increased attacks by the insurgent movement on Western targets, DPA reported.
"The bottom line is that they are enemies of Afghanistan and for that reason, we will take on the Haqqani network and stop their attacks on our troops and on the Afghan people," Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels, describing them as "a major threat."
The United States has described this Taliban group as the deadliest insurgent organization in Afghanistan.
"We will keep the Haqqani network under severe military pressure," Rasmussen said. "We are in Afghanistan to prevent the country from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists."
Alliance soldiers are still being attacked regularly, with 13 foreign troops killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul on Saturday in the worst such attack ever in the Afghan capital.
Rasmussen insisted that "we are moving in the right direction," noting that total enemy attacks from July to September had decreased by 26 per cent compared with the same period last year.
"Spectacular attacks capture the headlines, but they ... do not allow the enemies of Afghanistan to seize and hold ground," he said. "The enemy has been weakened."