Afghanistan: signs of progress, but violence surges again
Signs of foreign support, new tactics signal reemergence of Taliban.
A spate of recent violent and sophisticated attacks have officials in Afghanistan worried that Taliban fighters are receiving assistance or direction from foreign sources.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the attacks increasingly mimic those of insurgents in Iraq, including
the use of suicide bombers.
The recent attacks – including at least nine suicide bombings – have shown unusual levels of coordination, technological knowledge and blood lust, according to officials. Although military forces and facilities have been the most common targets, religious leaders, judges, police officers and foreign reconstruction workers have also fallen prey to the violence.
After last September's elections, when violence was relatively minor, Afghan and US officials had hoped that the insurgency was losing strength. But the Post reports that it now seems that the Taliban were using the two months following the elections to "marshal foreign support and plot new ways to undermine the Western-backed government."
This view was echoed by Robert Strang, terrorism analyst and the CEO of Investigation Management Group, on
FoxNews Monday. Mr. Strang said that one of the keys to improving the situation in the country was
better control of the production of poppies, which are used to make heroin. Heroin remains the largest cash crop in Afghanistan.
The Guardian reported earlier this month that the US is planning to
pull out 4,000 troops early next year, and hand over security for much of the country to NATO troops, led by the British. But Simon Tisdall wrote Sunday in
The Observer that as in Iraq,
the lack of security undermines the country's hopes for economic progress and political stability. The violence also has some NATO countries concerned for the safety of their troops.
With Mullah Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader, threatening intensifying jihad against "all infidel forces," worries are growing in Britain and allied countries about the situation their troops will face next spring, especially in the south, as the US begins to pull back. The basic question, as yet unanswered, is what are peacekeepers supposed to do when there is no peace to keep?
Tisdall writes that part of the problem may be President Bush's "wish to declare Afghanistan a democratic success story even if the facts on the ground tell a different story."
Charles Vincent, the World Food Program's country director in Afghanistan, wrote earlier this month in
The Age of Melbourne, Australia, that the September elections gave many Afghans
a sense of optimism about their future. And he says with a constitution, an elected parliament, and a president about to continue the country's political process, the international community can feel some optimism as well. But so many serious problems remain, he writes, that there is still a real possibility that the progress could be undermined.
Government institutions remain debilitated and struggle with corruption. The army and police services are not yet strong enough to keep the country secure. Afghanistan is still the world's largest producer of opium, and criminals and extremist elements profit enormously. Millions of Afghans remain uneducated; 86 per cent of women are illiterate. The economy struggles as private investors wait for the security situation to improve.
This daunting list could go on and on. You can see why when Hamid Karzai was elected President in 2004, and was asked his priorities for the country, he responded: "Everything."
Mr. Vincent says that the future of Afghanistan will depend on continued aid from foreign donors. "Afghanistan is slowly walking again, but it could easily fall back to its knees."
The Washington Post reported last week that the $73 million plan by the Bush administration has run into
many of the same problems plaguing the reconstruction effort in Iraq, resulting in a program that has fallen far short of stated goals.
Internal documents and more than 100 interviews in Washington and Kabul revealed a chain of mistakes and misjudgments: The US effort was poorly conceived in a rush to show results before the Afghan presidential election in late 2004. The drive to construct earthquake-resistant, American-quality buildings in rustic villages led to culture clashes, delays and what a USAID official called "extraordinary costs." Afghans complained that the initial design for roofs made them too heavy to build in rural areas without a crane, and the corrected design made them too light to bear Afghan snows. Local workmen unfamiliar with US construction methods sometimes produced shoddy work. Finally,
Reuters reports that the Afghan government
expressed its disappointment to the US government over what it considered "lenient" treatment for four US soldiers who burned the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters. US officials, who conducted an investigation after a video of the burnings was aired on Australian television, said that while the men did burn the bodies and taunted other insurgents about it, they had not meant it as a desecration. US officials accepted the soldiers' explanation that they had done it for hygienic reasons, but the Afghan government remained critical.
"This work of burning dead bodies is by all means against Islamic traditions and Afghans," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Naveed Ahmad Moez. "This by no means should be repeated... [I]t was a lenient punishment," he said. The incident angered many Afghans, who felt it was a serious affront to their religious beliefs.
Also...
•
Al Jazeera consults lawyers over Bush memo (
Guardian)
•
Ex-Powell aide criticizes detainee effort (
Associated Press)
•
Rice defends prisoner tactics (
USA Today)
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