Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, tapped to lead US forces in Afghanistan, is a former special operations commander whose elite forces were credited with notable battlefield successes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he nominated McChrystal to replace General David McKiernan as the top commander in Afghanistan because "new thinking'' was needed at a time that President Barack Obama was launching a new strategy for the country.
In choosing McChrystal, Gates has turned to an army general steeped in US special operations and with credibility among the commandos who are likely to bear the weight of renewed US efforts to minimise civilian casualties.
McChrystal was the commanding general of the Joint Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina from September 2003 to February 2006, and then commander of Joint Special Operations Command until August 2008.
Those positions put him in the thick of US special operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
He has been credited with targeted operations that hunted down and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, in 2006 and of devising the still classified tactics used to smash Al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed cells in 2007 and 2008.
But special operators also have been accused of detainee abuses under McChrystal's command. Questions about that were reported to have held up his appointment to his current post last year.
He was also found "accountable'' for making inaccurate statements in the awarding of a Silver Star for Army Ranger Pat Tillman, an ex-American football star who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.
The shake-up comes at a crucial time in the nearly eight year old US military engagement in Afghanistan, with a spreading Taliban insurgency and US plans to nearly double its forces there to about 68,000 by the fall.
The US military faces growing Afghan anger over civilian casualties in US air strikes - a conundrum for US commanders struggling to keep public support while protecting forces operating in remote and difficult terrain.
A West Point graduate, McChrystal has had a stellar army career with key commands interspersed with time off for study at Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the Council on Foreign Affairs, and the Naval War College.
He was the chief of staff of the combined joint task force that conducted ``Operation Enduring Freedom'', the US backed campaign that ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in late 2001.
During the first Gulf War, he deployed to Saudi Arabia as an army special operations action officer.
His career in special operations began as commander of an A-team detachment with the 7th Special Forces Group in 1980, followed by command of an Army Ranger battalion in 1997 and a Ranger regiment from 97-99.
He was chief of staff of the 18th Airborne Corps 2001-2002 when the United States went to war in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
He also has served as vice director for operations of the Joint Staff (2002-2003) before his current stint as director of the Joint Staff, from August 2008 until the present.
Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said McChrystal has "the broadness and the depth that go far beyond just high-end special operations skills''.
"I'm extremely confident that he will be able to carry out this mission in its fullness to include, obviously, those skills, but others as well,'' Mullen said at a news conference.
McChrystal is currently the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a powerful post that would have made him an influential figure in the development of a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is likely to be promoted to a fourth star.
Lieutenant General David Rodriguez, Gates's top military assistant and a former number two military commander in Afghanistan, will be made the deputy commander in Afghanistan, according to Gates.
"They each bring tremendous skills in a variety of areas that are very pertinent to the kind of fight that we have Afghanistan,'' Gates said. "And it is their combined skill set that I think gives us some fresh opportunities looking forward.
AFP
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