Pentagon says Taliban attacks to rise
States insurgents have regrouped
WASHINGTON - The Taliban has regrouped after its fall from power in Afghanistan and the pace of its attacks is likely to increase this year, according to a Pentagon report that offers a dim view of progress in the nearly seven-year-old war.
Noting that insurgent violence has climbed, the report said that despite US and coalition efforts to capture and kill key leaders, the Taliban is likely to "maintain or even increase the scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008."
The Taliban, it said, has "coalesced into a resilient insurgency." At the same time, the Afghan Army and national police are progressing slowly and still lack the trainers they need.
The report was released yesterday along with a separate plan for the development of Afghan security forces. They are the first two comprehensive Pentagon reports to evaluate progress in Afghanistan.
Vast problems - corruption, the illegal poppy trade, human rights abuses, and slow progress in reconstruction - were detailed, as well as the struggle to train and equip the Afghan Army and police.
The report described a dual terror threat in Afghanistan that includes the Taliban in the south, and "a more complex, adaptive insurgency" in the east. That fragmented insurgency is made up of groups ranging from Al Qaeda and Afghan warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's radical Hezb-i-Islami group to Pakistani militants such as Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Insurgents will continue to challenge the government in southern and eastern Afghanistan, and they may also move to increase their power in the north and west, the report predicted.
The US military in Afghanistan said yesterday that one member of the US-led coalition was killed and five more wounded in the west of the country. Two Afghan Army soldiers also were wounded in the clash Thursday during a reconnaissance patrol in the Gulistan district of Farah Province.
The Pentagon report was pessimistic as it described efforts to train the army and police.
As of March, it said, just one army battalion and a headquarters unit could operate independently, while 26 battalions, five brigade headquarters and two corps headquarters units could plan and execute counterinsurgency operations with the support of coalition forces.
In addition, as of the spring, the United States had provided only 44 percent of the nearly 2,400 trainers needed for the Afghan Army, and just 39 percent of the mentors for the Afghan police.
Development of the Afghan police is taking longer and has been hindered by "corruption, insufficient US military trainers and advisors, and a lack of unity of effort within the international community," the report noted.
