TIME: Is the Taliban Making a Comeback?

[maddezmom]

Is the Taliban Making a Comeback? By ARYN BAKER/KABUL
40 minutes ago



Hundreds of Taliban insurgents swarmed through a key district just outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Monday, sending residents fleeing in anticipation of retaliation by NATO troops. This latest Taliban assault in the Argandab district caps several weeks of increased fighting in the country's southern districts along the border with Pakistan, followed by a spectacular raid on a Kandahar prison, in which some 400 Taliban fighters were freed, according to officials. "My men have seen a few of the escaped Taliban prisoners among the fighters in Argandab," says district chief Ghulam Farouq.

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Argandab, just 10 miles southeast of Kandahar, is famous for its lush vineyards and pomegranate orchards. It is also a key symbol for the insurgency. Soviet troops that took the rest of Afghanistan when they invaded in 1979 were never able to conquer the district. Its shady groves, raisin drying barns and deep irrigation canals provide excellent cover for fighters. Kandahar residents worry that the militants could use it as a base for an attack on the city itself, in an attempt to regain their former power base. "Argandab is a strategic district, which the Taliban can use to threaten Kandahar," says former police chief Khan Mohammad. The Taliban have taken every village in the area except for the main town of Argandab, Mohammad says, and there are 40 to 50 Taliban fighters in each village. He worries the prison raid was a precursor to an attack on Argandab itself. "The Taliban have gained a lot of power with those who have been freed from the prison," he says.


Officials of the International Security Assistance Force, NATO's military arm in Afghanistan, are skeptical about reports of such high numbers of Taliban forces fighting together, but they say they are ready to respond to any threat. "In the wake of the jailbreak we obviously have a different and more difficult security situation in Kandahar," says ISAF spokesman Mark Laity. "We are aware of the potential threat, and to that end we have already moved several hundred Afghan National Army forces to Kandahar. We have also repositioned our international forces in the area."


A massing of Taliban fighters in Argandab is a departure from the militant tactics that have evolved over the past two years. In 2006 NATO forces soundly defeated a Taliban force in nearby Panjwai and declared the movement all but dead. An increase in suicide bombings and the utilization of Improvised Explosive Devices to attack coalition forces since then has been interpreted as signs of weakness and desperation. Now it is starting to look like a recuperation strategy. Monday's raid combined with Friday's well-planned jailbreak - the operation lasted just under 30 minutes and involved two suicide bombers and militants mounted on motorcycles who systematically broke down every cell door in the facility - is evidence of the growing strength of the Taliban, whose fundamentalist Islamic regime was pushed from power when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080617/wl_time/isthetalibanmakingacomeback;_ylt=Apg7pIVJ6RX5hzdjW4t8VdOs0NUE

[Doctor_J]

1. This is a joke, right?

The taliban have been in charge of Afghanistan for at least 3 years. The only question is whether Bush lost the country to them, or gave it to them intentionally.