In addition to members of Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a number of senior Canadian government and military officials were also in attendance.

Addressing the Canadian people, and the families of soldiers who lost their lives fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, the President explained why the struggle must continue:

“After the success of Afghans in the fight against communism, the international community abandoned Afghanistan to the mercy of its neighbors and extremist forces.

In this situation Al-Qaeda activated its bases in our country against the people of Afghanistan and the international community.  When the people of Afghanistan suffered from this situation and we warned the world of its consequences, the international community did not take any action against them.  This was because Afghanistan neither had something to sell to the world nor had anything to buy from them.

The tragedy of September 11 brought the miseries of Afghans into the homes of people in the West and, as a result, the world’s attention was attracted to the danger and they came to the rescue of the people of Afghanistan.

I express my gratitude to the international community, especially Canada, for their assistance to Afghanistan.  Because of this assistance, today’s Afghanistan is completely different from the Afghanistan which existed five years ago.  Today, Afghanistan has a modern constitution and a democratically elected parliament, 28 percent of which are women.  More than 6 million Afghan children go to school, of which 40 percent are girls, more than 4.5 million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan, and tens of thousands of armed men have been disarmed and demobilized.

All these achievements have been made possible with the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers and with the assistance of the international community.

Despite these achievements, our nascent democracy is facing challenges: an increase in terrorist activities in some parts of Afghanistan is the biggest challenge we are currently facing.  Five years after the defeat of the Taliban, a significant number have taken refuge outside Afghanistan’s borders, and after a while reorganized themselves.  They receive training, funding, and motivation from outside Afghanistan and kill Afghans.

We will not succeed in the fight against terrorism unless we destroy its roots wherever it is.  The strategy has been focused on killing terrorists so far.  This strategy is doomed to failure unless we fight terrorism in all its aspects.  We must be given assurances that no country uses terrorism as a political instrument.”