Taliban fighters escalate attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan as NATO bolsters its presence in a bid to bring the situation under control, Sahar El-Bahr reports Almost 8,000 NATO soldiers took over responsibility for security in Southern Afghanistan, a stronghold of the Taliban, earlier this month in what analysts predict will be the most dangerous and difficult mission in NATO's 57-year history. NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has already been working in western and northern Afghanistan and Kabul. Currently about 21,000 US forces are in Afghanistan, along with 20,000 NATO-led troops. Early this month the US-led coalition brought around 8,000 British, Canadian, Dutch and US soldiers under ISAF command to control security in six southern provinces in Afghanistan. Recently, Washington expressed a desire to decrease its force levels in Afghanistan from 21,000 to 16,000 in 2006. Instead, amid escalating Taliban attacks, the US has been forced to enlist the help of additional troops. For Gamal Zahran, professor in the faculty of economic and political sciences at Cairo University, the drafting of an additional 8,000 European soldiers is proof that the American and European agendas are increasingly similar. British Lieutenant-General David Richards, ISAF's commander, declared earlier this month that: "NATO is here for the long term; for as long as the government and people of Afghanistan require our assistance." He added that "the people's own desire to defend what they see developing in front of them ... will enable us to achieve success" over a "reasonable" period of time. "That doesn't mean we will not fight," Richards said. ISAF declared in a statement the force intended to continue coalition efforts to "provide security as well as reconstruction projects and humanitarian assistance". However it seems that the Taliban has no desire for assistance in the south, as witnessed by a spate of suicide operations, roadside bombings and mortar attacks directed at ISAF's troops. Indeed, Sunday 20 August was one of the bloodiest weekends this year in Afghanistan with almost 95 killed in a series of clashes between troops and Taliban fighters, including more than 70 Taliban killed in one battle. According to Agence France Presse, NATO ground troops called in air and artillery support during the clash. The violence coincided with the anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from Britain in 1919, much celebrated in the south. Further, Afghan officials confirmed Sunday that six policemen and four Taliban fighters were killed following an attack on a border police patrol in the western province of Nimroz Saturday while four American soldiers were killed and three injured in clashes with Taliban fighters the same day. Only two days after NATO took command of the south from the US-led coalition earlier this month, Canadian forces started to suffer their worst losses in Afghanistan after three separate roadside attacks in Kandahar province killed four Canadian soldiers and injured 10. At the time, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "What the men and women in harm's way want and need to know at moments like this is that their government and Canadians stand behind their mission." Last week, however, Canadian Defence Ministry Spokesperson John Nethercott seemed less moved that six Canadian soldiers were wounded in a mortar attack in the Zhari district west of Kandahar: "During that attack, six Canadian soldiers were injured. None of the injuries is life threatening. I think it was just another attack by Taliban forces," Nethercott said. Some 2,300 Canadian soldiers are based in Kandahar under NATO command after serving for several months under the US-led military coalition. Also one day after NATO took command of the south from the US-led coalition, three British soldiers were killed in an ambush after being reported missing, NATO's military force in the country said. Officials noted that British forces were "involved in an ongoing action with insurgent forces in northern Helmand province." During the incident, "a UK vehicle patrol was attacked by insurgents with rocket- propelled grenades and heavy machine guns." Sixty-three foreign troops have been killed in combat, most of them Americans. Britain has around 3,600 soldiers in Helmand as part of the NATO force and last month announced plans to increase troop numbers to 4,500 by October. In mid-July, Des Browne, the British Defence Secretary, said that Britain was to send 900 extra troops to Afghanistan following a rise in attacks by Taliban fighters. "We have taken casualties, but we have overmatched the opposing forces every single time we have faced them. They have tried to block our mission and failed," stated Browne. According to official statements of the US- led coalition, hundreds of Taliban fighters have been killed over recent months. Zahran, however, doubts the veracity of numbers of causalities declared by Afghan and US officials. "Through my personal contacts with a number of researchers and fair correspondents in Afghanistan, I can confirm that the clashes between Taliban and NATO's troops are fierce, leaving more causalities among US-led troops than the Taliban," he said. Some officials confess that the Taliban is better organised than ever, capable of launching wholesale attacks on coalition bases. "If we thought that the Taliban would not recover from their defeat in 2001 we were wrong," said Tom Koenigs, UN special representative for Afghanistan. Zahran proffers that the Taliban currently dominates almost all of Afghanistan except Kabul and parts in the east: "The techniques the Taliban use in Afghanistan are similar to those of Hizbullah -- guerrilla tactics: attack and regroup." Zahran believes that the Taliban is most likely supported by a number of countries whose essential interests clash with US military presence in the region, such as Pakistan, Iran, India and China. Zahran expects the Taliban to eventually force US-led troops to withdraw together with what he called the traitorous pro- American government of Hamid Karzai. Perhaps it is the proximity of just such an outcome that spurred US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to warn onlookers and analysts "not to confuse what is happening in the south with a strategic threat to the Afghan government." The Taliban are "losing hugely," she said, though their ability to attack foreign forces seems as yet undiminished.
