WASHINGTON (PAN): A top Obama Administration official said on Thursday the goal of the US and international forces currently stationed in Afghanistan was to provide a security environment conducive to holding free and fair elections in Afghanistan.

"One week from now, the people of Afghanistan will go to the polls to elect a president and provincial councils. The role of the Afghan and international military forces is to support an election administered and organised by the government of Afghanistan," the defence secretary said.

Robert Gates told reporters at a Pentagon news conference: "The goal is to provide a security environment as conducive as possible to holding a fair, credible election free from violence and intimidation."

Due to some of the military operations that had taken place in Helmand province and other places in the south, he believed, more Afghans would be able to vote than had been the case before the recent deployment of additional US forces. "Obviously that's an encouraging development." 

About the overall security situation, the secretary said it was a mixed picture. "In some parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban have clearly established a presence. The operations under way now and those being considered for the coming months are designed to roll back the Taliban and establish a lasting security and government presence"

General McChrystal was assessing the security situation in the context of the President Obama's goals and strategy, he said, adding the commander would submit his assessment to him and NATO sometime between the Afghan election and early-September.

"That assessment will not include specific recommendations or requests for more forces. However, we have made clear to General McChrystal that he is free to ask for what he needs to complete the important mission that he has been given," Gates explained.

He hoped to see progress in Afghanistan within a year. Certainly it would be our hope, assuming that we are moving in the right direction, that we would see a situation, as we have seen in Iraq, over the past two-and- a-half years, where more and more of the security responsibility will flow from international security forces to Afghan security forces."

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