EDITORIAL
The renewed ferocity of Taliban attacks on troops of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), confirms that this is, and should always have been, the frontline in the war on terror. Ten French soldiers were slain on Monday in a bold attack on an elite fighting unit in mountains east of the capital of Kabul.
On Wednesday three Canadian ISAF troops were killed in the southern part of the country, and on Thursday three Polish soldiers were killed in central Afghanistan.
Also in the past week, the Taliban have launched rocket attacks on the capital on separate occasions, and sent waves of suicide bombers to try to overrun a US military outpost in southeastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. The attempt was unsuccessful.
Clearly the ISAF force needs to be bolstered, a fact which is recognised by most of the member nations. French President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Kabul shortly after the loss of the 10 French soldiers and reaffirmed his commitment to increase the French contingent by some 700 troops by the end of August, to a total of 2,600. This would push the ISAF troop strength to over 53,000. The US contributes around 14,000 and the UK around 8,500.
It's not clear where the rest of the needed troops will come from. United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his own trip to the Afghan capital on Thursday in which he also pledged to stay the course in Afghanistan, but did not promise any more troops.
The United States may be willing to send more troops, especially since it appears that a deal to begin phased withdrawals from Iraq has been reached. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Baghdad on Thursday to take part in late-stage negotiations.
The situation in Afghanistan is not one of occupation by a foreign power. Rather, it is the Taliban that seek to re-occupy the country and bring it once again under the sway of inflexible extremism, where women have no freedom of expression or movement and men are obliged to swear fealty to warlords. The ISAF troops must be careful to keep this distinction clear. Nothing has been as harmful to the cause of stamping out the Taliban as the all-too-frequent bombing missions which have struck wedding parties and other instances where civilians have been mistakenly targetted.
Ultimately victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan must be home-grown. As Mr Brown noted in Kabul, the plan is to increase the Afghan army's strength to 120,000 by 2013 from its current number of 60,000. He expressed the belief that this would not be enough, however.
The importance of defeating the Taliban is two-fold. First, Afghanistan's fledgling democracy cannot be secure until this is accomplished. Large segments of the country are now removed from the control of the central representative government. The international community owes it to the Afghan people not to turn and walk away another time.
Second, Taliban control of any part of the country provides a space for terrorist organisations to plot their schemes, as was the case for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda in pre-9/11 Afghanistan. What's more, the Taliban itself is increasingly turning to terrorism as a prime tactic.
The matter is greatly complicated by the fact that the Taliban long ago set up shop in northwestern Pakistan as well, and is showing new boldness in that country. The Taliban claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings at a munitions factory that killed scores of people in the town of Wah, about 30 km from Islamabad. The attack came in the aftermath of an aggressive government attack on Taliban strongholds. It is essential that the newly remodelled Pakistani government keep up the tough measures, but at the same time it is also absolutely essential that everything possible is done to guarantee the safety of civilians in these areas. In addition, the ISAF, the Afghan government and the new Pakistani government should begin coordinating immediately to put an end to the Taliban once and for all.
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