Afghan insurgency not spreading, NATO claims

[maddezmom]

Source: CTV.ca

Afghan insurgency not spreading, NATO claims
Updated Sun. Feb. 3 2008 8:13 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

NATO claims the Afghan insurgency is concentrated in about 10 per cent of the country and is not spreading.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that the insurgent movement is being contained," Lt. Col. Claudia Foss, a NATO spokeswoman, told a news conference in Kabul on Sunday.

The claim follows a week in which some pessimistic assessments of the situation in Afghanistan were released.

A U.S. study warned Afghanistan could become a "failed state" if the NATO mission failed there, and the development group Oxfam warned of a looming humanitarian crisis.

Canada is still digesting the results of the Manley panel's assessment of the Afghanistan mission, released Jan. 22.



Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080203/nato_afghan_080203/20080203?hub=World&s_name=

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Insurgencies spread in Afghanistan and Pakistan By Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers
2 hours, 23 minutes ago



WASHINGTON — Islamic insurgents are expanding their numbers and reach in Afghanistan and Pakistan , spreading violence and disarray over a vast cross-border zone where al Qaida has rebuilt the sanctuary it lost when the United States invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

There is little in the short term that the Bush administration or its allies can do to halt the bloodshed, which is spreading toward Pakistan's heartland and threatening to destabilize the U.S.-backed governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan .

In Afghanistan , U.S. and NATO forces are facing "a classic growing insurgency," Adm. Michael Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.

But the U.S. military, stretched thin by the war in Iraq , is hard-pressed to send more than the 3,200 additional Marines the Bush administration is dispatching to Afghanistan . The growing insurgency there is fueling rifts within the NATO alliance as Germany and other nations refuse to allow their troops to participate in offensive operations in Afghanistan . The Afghan army is making progress but still cannot operate independently.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080203/wl_mcclatchy/2836564_1

[laststeamtrain]

1. McClatchy: Insurgencies spread in Afghanistan and Pakistan

<snip>

In Afghanistan, U.S. and NATO forces are facing "a classic growing insurgency," Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.

But the U.S. military, stretched thin by the war in Iraq, is hard-pressed to send more than the 3,200 additional Marines the Bush administration is dispatching to Afghanistan. The growing insurgency there is fueling rifts within the NATO alliance as Germany and other nations refuse to allow their troops to participate in offensive operations in Afghanistan. The Afghan army is making progress but still cannot operate independently.

"Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," warned an Atlantic Council of the United States report last week. The report was directed by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, the former top NATO commander. "What is happening in Afghanistan and beyond its borders can have even greater strategic long-term consequences than the struggle in Iraq."

<more>

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/26133.html
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It's all as clear as mud isn't it?

[alfredo]

2. Why should it spread to areas they already hold?

[Solly Mack]

3. snicker...wars of containment and all that