Pauline Hanson backs troops in Afghanistan war zone

Pauline Hanson has declared Australia must stay in war-torn Afghanistan to maintain pressure against Islamic extremism.

One Nation senator Pauline Hanson. Picture: Zak Simmonds

Pauline Hanson has declared Australia must stay in war-torn Afghanistan to maintain pressure against Islamic extremism and continue training local forces to fight a Taliban resurgence.

The One Nation leader, speaking to The Australian from overseas, volunteered for a parliamentary visit to Afghanistan and flew to Kabul on Saturday after three days of intensive training.

Senator Hanson said she received briefings about the situation and travelled in a Chinook miliary helicopter and Bushmaster armoured troop carrier, saying it was “imperative” for Australia to continue its mentoring role.

“I can see that we’re going to be here for the long haul. It’s very necessary that we do,” she said. “You can see the changes that are happening in the country. One soldier came up to me and said ‘Can you please tell the media and the people that we want to be here. This is the highlight of our careers. We’ve trained for this’,” Senator Hanson said.

The trip comes after a parliamentary delegation to the Middle East was cancelled last year when Senator Hanson blasted the ABC for flagging the trip.

After meeting troops this week, she said that if Australia pulled out of war-torn Afghanistan, the Taliban would “come back in and we will go back to square one”.

There was a real risk that Islamic State could shift focus to Afghanistan. “If we do not deal with it now, their tentacles will filter throughout the world.”

She described her visit as “a great experience for me. It’s made me more aware. It instilled in me that it is the right thing to do, that we stay here and deal with this.”

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has proposed opening negotiations with the Taliban and recognising them as a legitimate political group as part of a process aimed at ending the conflict.

Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute, Rodger Shanahan, an expert on Middle East security, told The Australian the UShad upped its military presence in Afghanistan in response to an increasing casualty toll on the Afghan National Army.

“The objective of the US was to stabilise the Afghan National Army through training and mentoring support and the provision of “combat enablers” — like air support — and up the military pressure on the Taliban in an effort to force them to the negotiating table,” he said.

“So the US has increased its force presence in Afghanistan ... It’s using much more air support to assist the Afghan security forces, which have been shaky in the past.”

Dr Shanahan said another objective was to stop Islamic State gaining a foothold in the country, saying there was a sub-­element of the extremist group operating in Afghanistan.

“There is a feeling that as they’re knocked out of Iraq and Syria there is a bleeding out of some fighters into Afghanistan and they would professionalise the ones already there,” he said.

About 300 ADF members are deployed in Afghanistan as part of the train, advise and assist mission.