Scores killed as violence surges across Afghanistan

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL24072.htm

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 18 (Reuters) - About 100 people were killed in two of the most violent days in Afghanistan since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban, as hundreds of insurgents attacked a southern town and fighting flared across the country.

Government officials said 13 policemen and 40 Taliban were killed in hours of fighting that raged after the strike on Mosa Qala town, 470 km (300 miles) southwest of Kabul, was launched on Wednesday evening.

Helmand's deputy governor, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada, said it was the biggest strike in the province by the hardline Islamists since they were driven from power more than four years ago.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks on foreign and Afghan government forces in recent months as thousands more NATO peacekeepers arrive. Violence in parts of the country is the worst it has been since the end of their rule.

[genie_weenie]

1. Makes sense.

The peoples of Afghanistan didn't get defeated by our light armed incursion easily, they had simply been beaten down due to constant warfare since the 1979 Soviet Invasion and the Civil War which raged in the early 90s and then the Taliban War. Now they've had 4 years to rest and recuperate since the fall of Kabul and the end to "Major Combat Operations".

[NNN0LHI]

2. We never controlled anything outside of Kabul. And that was dicey n/t

[genie_weenie]

4. Well, control is a tricky word

(I won't use we) They, mainly local warlords baked by NATO troops, returned to power (taken from them by the Taliban) and exercised "control" over Herat, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kabul is the ISAF HQ but the whole ISAF plan was for control of major cities which would be extended year after year to the ares of control intersected. Sort of like ripples in a pool of water which eventually overlap. The problem was the provinces along the Pakistan border (Konar, Nooristan) in which you have land which is unconquerable despite all bluster about terrain not mattering because of our Air Supremacy.

But like all insurgencies, all the guerrillas have to do is show they are nicer or more powerful than the occupiers and the populace will swing allegiances. But the * Regime doesn't factor any of this in, to them war should go like a game of RISK, you move your faceless nondescript pieces onto a section of the world you wish to conquer and remove the faceless, soulless, nondescript pieces which had previously been there.

But, in reality I'd say Afghanistan is akin to the many German principalities that existed in the middle ages with major and minor players.

[fishnfla]

3. When's poppy season?

Its the new golden triangle of heroin over there

[cliss]

5. Afghanistan - the forgotten war.

It seems that we can only have 1 war at a time on Center stage. Iraq has been on that stage for about 3 years now.

It's time to take a closer look at what is happening in Afghanistan. It's absolutely terrible how this country is being devastated. There are more coalition forces here, also. They are at risk as much as US troops.

We really need to get the hell out of there, pull Karzai out and let the Afghanis elect their own leader, not some puppet oil executive.