Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Gen Petraeus: “Levels of violence in Afghanistan have increased significantly”

Gen David Petraeus has said fighting in Afghanistan will continue and could intensify in the coming months.

He is before the Senate Armed Services Committee after being nominated by President Obama to lead the war.

“The going inevitably gets tougher before it gets easier,” he said, adding that he believes progress is possible.

He told the committee that coalition forces will face strong resistance as they take away insurgent safe havens and reduce their freedom of movement.

In written answers to the committee, he said described the security situation in Afghanistan as “tenuous” and insurgents as “resilient and still-confident”.

Gen Petraeus said he supports the president’s plan to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, but emphasised it is the “beginning of a process”.

He also said he would assess the rules of engagement which have come under intense criticism in recent days.

Gen Stanley McChrystal, the former US commander in Afghanistan, was dimssed last week by President Obama.

The general and his aides had criticised senior US administration officials in a Rolling Stone magazine article. He has since announced his retirement from the US Army.

Gen Petraeus assured senators that he would work co-operatively with civilian leadership in Afghanistan.

Mounting unease

Gen Petraeus, 57, was nominated by President Obama last week to replace Gen McChrystal as commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The widely-lauded soldier has formidable political and diplomatic skills. He has been credited with having turned around the military situation in Iraq with a “surge” there.

There is a broad consensus among lawmakers that there is not a better man for the job, the BBC’s defence correspondent Nick Childs says.

But his confirmation hearing is also likely to be become a platform for the airing of mounting unease in the Congress over the administration’s Afghan strategy, our correspondent says.

Republicans are expected to question Gen Petraeus about whether Mr Obama’s strategy of commencing a troop drawdown in July 2011 will hamper his leadership of the war effort.

The leading Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain, has been a vocal critic of setting a date for withdrawal.

Some in Washington political circles also question the reliability of the Afghan government as a partner and the quality of Afghan forces.

The Obama administration is stressing that Gen Petraeus represents continuity and reassurance, and that he is in many ways the father of the strategy to which the US and its allies are wedded.

Gen Petraeus described the security situation in Afghanistan as “tenuous”

In December, President Obama ordered 30,000 extra troops into Afghanistan, an announcement that received support from both parties.

Meanwhile, Defence Secretary Robert Gates held talks at the Pentagon with his UK counterpart, Dr Liam Fox.

During their meeting, Dr Fox stressed the need to keep focus on ensuring that the necessary security conditions are met before transition to the Afghan authorities can take place.

“We cannot afford Afghanistan to lapse back into a failed state, which will create a security vacuum, contaminate the region and threaten the national security of the UK and its allies. That is why we are there and that is why we stay,” he said.