Official: 15,000 insurgents are in Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

Official: 15,000 insurgents are in Afghanistan
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, September 23, 2008

ARLINGTON, Va. — Afghanistan’s defense minister estimates there are between 10,000 and 15,000 full-time insurgents in his country, including an increase of foreign fighters and al-Qaida terrorists coming into the country through Pakistan.

Abdul Rahim Wardak, speaking to reporters on Monday after visiting the recently dedicated Pentagon Memorial, also acknowledged that Afghan and coalition forces are stretched thin amid increasing violence.

In 2007, violence in Afghanistan increased threefold, and this year looks to be the most violent yet, Wardak said. But he is confident in the Afghanistan will beat the insurgents with the help of the United States and other coalition partners.

"We Afghans have been in worse situations than this," Wardak said, citing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Wardak called for the creation of a combined joint task force including Afghan, coalition and Pakistan troops to police both sides of the countries’ joint border.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57584

[hobbit709]

1. Does that mean they are in their "last throes?"

[unhappycamper]

2. We're 'turning a corner'.

Unfortunately that light you see at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of an oncoming train.

[Bubbha Jo]

3. And how many of those "insurgents" are average citizens

who had a innocent family member killed by coalition forces? Revenge is probably the motive behind behavior on a lot of these....