Taliban have expanded their influence across Afghanistan: NATO official
Muslims Always Victorious
Reuters
December 27, 2009
* Says Taliban have own governors in 33 out of the country�s 34 provinces
* US has only a year to turn the tide of Afghan war and make US strategy
work
KABUL: The Afghan Taliban have expanded their influence across Afghanistan
and are now running a 'full-fledged insurgency� with their own 'governors�
in all but one of the country�s provinces, a senior North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO) intelligence official said on Sunday.
"Time is running out. We�ve got about a year to prove that our strategy can
actually work. The Taliban has shadow governors in 33 out of the 34
provinces," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told a small
group of reporters. "So he (the Taliban) has got a government-in-waiting. He
has got ministers," he added. Violence in Afghanistan has reached some of
its highest levels in the eight-year war and the United States President
Barack Obama is sending in 30,000 extra troops as part of his new war
strategy, to try to turn the tide. Other NATO countries are sending some
7,000 more. But Washington�s plan also calls for US troop levels to be
scaled down from 2011 and the White House has said the United States will
not be in Afghanistan in eight or nine years� time. The Taliban are willing
to wait.
"The insurgency is confident and are looking towards a post-ISAF
Afghanistan," he said, referring to the NATO-led International Security
Assistance Force. "If we are going to be successful, this has to be
perceived as an international effort, almost a struggle, and it is a
struggle, to stop or deter this notion of Islamic extremism." There are
already around 110,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan but despite the
numbers, they are locked in a stalemate with the Taliban, unable to stem the
rising tide of suicide and roadside bomb attacks. With the improvised
explosive device (IED) or roadside bomb, the Taliban have found their weapon
of choice against the foreign troops, the official said, adding 'kinetic�
events had risen by 300 percent since 2007. The official said in 2003,
foreign forces dealt with 81 IEDs, that figure rose to over 7,200 for 2009.
This figure includes IEDs that had exploded and those that were found and
cleared. "This is not meant to be a joke, but whoever is their logistics
chief, you know, we ought to be taking lessons from them. Because that�s
pretty good ... for an enemy insurgent force to generate that kind of
capability," the official said.
Foreign troop casualties are at their highest since the war began and public
support is waning. More than 1,500 soldiers have died in Afghanistan since
the war started in late 2001 and twice as many Americans have died so far
this year compared to 2008. reuters
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