French General Franck Le Bot, who took command Sunday of NATO forces in Kabul province, said he has the means to ensure "maximum security " in the capital hit recently by riots and several attacks.
France will for the next eight months command the Regional Command Capital covering the city and surrounding areas, followed by Turkey and then Italy.
Riots in the city on May 29 left 17 dead and there have been a series of attacks since the start of July. Bot said these showed that "as far as my military mission is concerned, I have work to do in cooperation with the Afghans."
"One can't say that as far as Kabul is concerned, nothing will happen. It has happened, Now the means which have been put in place can allow us to ensure maximum security," he told AFP.
Bot will have around 2,500 troops under his command, 1,200 of them French.
"The security environment in Kabil seems very stable to me," he told Europe 1 radio.
"Kabul is not actually the most unstable zone in Afghanistan." he told AFP. Violence is endemic in the south and east of the country where Taliban insurgents are strongest and drug traffickiers are powerful.
"Still, Kabul is a key point in Afghanistan since it is the capital. All the centres of power and all that counts in Afghanistan is in Kabul."
Apart from helping maintain secvrity in the city, Bot said his mission was to seek greater cooperation with the Afghan army, "to pass them the baton, so that they can progressively take physical and geographical responsibility for the zones under our control."
He declined to give a timetable for such a handover.
