Despite volatility and uncertainty, Afghanistan continues to make progress in enhancing its stability as the withdrawal continues for the international military forces that have sought to bring security there for the past 12 years, the top U.N. envoy in the country said Tuesday. However, international support will be required through at least another decade for ambitious security, political, and economic improvements, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative Jan Kubis told the Security Council. "We must resolutely continue working together to ensure a sovereign and sustainable state that will never again become a haven for international terrorism and organized crime, notably including narco-businesses. This is in everyone's interest," Kubis said in his quarterly report on the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). "Security transition is proceeding as planned," Kubis said of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with a current strength of about 85,000, which is set to be withdrawn by the end of 2014. "There has not been the catastrophic collapse in security some doomsayers had predicted."
