Foreign troops in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will have to stay in Afghanistan for at least a decade, one of the force's German commanders said on Monday. Brigadier Walter Spindler told the Neuen Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper that the 7,000-strong force which includes around 2,000 German soldiers "can reckon with a decade at the earliest, providing developments are positive". Progress had been made in setting up the army, the police force and the secret service, but they needed time to become established, Spindler said. However the international troops will be required over the next 10 years to defend the reconstruction of Afghanistan against drug barons and warlords. The German parliament voted in September to extend the German troops' mission in Afghanistan by another year. (AFP)