Outlook worsens in Afghanistan

[Al-khiyal]

Two hours' drive from the Afghan city of Kandahar, "the perfect storm" is about to break in the fields of Helmand province.

Here, in the place where British troops are to spend the next three years, a combination of factors have conspired to produce what is probably the biggest opium harvest in the history of a province that, last year, produced more than 20 per cent of the world's heroin on its own.

A law and order vacuum has allowed an increasingly well-organised drugs cartel, a corrupt local government and resurgent Taliban to structure the poppy cultivation of the province as never before. That has combined with fine growing conditions this year to produce what, if these were wine producers, might be considered a memorable vintage. And, country-wide it is now clear the poppy harvest will be close to record levels again. It is a dispiriting blow for the international counter-narcotics effort as 86 per cent of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan......

Afghan poppy farmers expect record opium crop and the Taliban will reap the rewards

[Al-khiyal]

The Taliban is regrouping in the mountains of southern Afghanistan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday.

"We are winning, but the war is not yet won," said Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, Combined Forces Command- Afghanistan. "In northern Kandahar, in northern Helmand, and in Oruzgan ... it's fair to say the Taliban influence in certain areas is stronger than it was last year......"

[Al-khiyal]

Afghanistan attacks leave 8 dead, 13 hurt

[Al-khiyal]

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Some of the fiercest violence since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001 erupted across southern Afghanistan, with militants battling coalition forces, detonating car bombs and attacking a small village. Up to 105 people were killed, officials said Thursday.

The violence occurred in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, where 9,000 NATO-led forces are scheduled to deploy this summer to suppress the stubborn insurgency.

The Taliban death toll from fighting Wednesday night and Thursday ranged up to 87, U.S. and Afghan officials said. Also, 14 Afghan police officers, one American civilian, a Canadian soldier and an Afghan civilian also were killed in the fighting, officials said.

Up to 105 dead in Afghan battles

[Al-khiyal]

Samihullah is just the kind of returned refugee his country needs. Aged 30, with a wife and two children, he was well educated in the camps across the border in Pakistan. After the Taliban were pushed out in 2001, he returned home and joined the Afghan Ministry of Education, where he helped to rebuild the higher-education sector. But not any more.

I found him working as a security guard at the UN's World Food Programme headquarters in Kabul. With allowances he earns a total of $270 a month there, compared with $50 at the Afghan higher education. The decision to move jobs was not a hard one.

But it is the international system that is sucking Afghanistan dry. Any returnee who speaks English can be guaranteed a job at a higher level in the UN, or the myriad big NGOs that have set up shop in Kabul.

Ashraf Ghani, who was Finance Minister in the first year after the Taliban fell, and is now chancellor of Kabul University, says the international community has failed Afghanistan. Rather than build up the government, it has created a parallel system that has actively weakened the capacity of Afghanistan to run its own affairs......

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[Al-khiyal]

Fighting between Taliban insurgents and Afghan government forces has escalated. The latest attack in the south left more than 70 Taliban and police dead. In a desperate move, President Hamid Karzai has renewed an amnesty offer to the Taliban, but it's unlikely to stop the offensive:

Taliban steps up spring offensive

[Al-khiyal]

The Taliban's military offensive has begun in earnest in southern Afghanistan, with many key districts already captured by the militia that retreated from power in 2001 after the US-led invasion.

The scale and frequency of the Taliban's revitalized insurgency can be attributed directly to the recent appointment by Taliban leader Mullah Omar of legendary mujahideen leader Jalaluddin Haqqani as overall military field commander.

In the latest action - the biggest since the Taliban's ousting - in Helmand province, between 300 and 400 heavily armed Taliban fighters stormed a remote village. At least 100 people were killed, including 15 or more Afghan police and a female Canadian soldier.

Haqqani, a cleric, rose to fame during the decade of opposition to the Soviets in the 1980s. Coincidentally, at that time he was an ally of the United States......

Taliban's new commander ready for a fight