The Hindu : International : Afghan situation still volatile

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004

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International

Afghan situation still volatile

By Simon Tisdall

KABUL, SEPT. 14. Weekend violence in the western city of Herat is a reminder of how volatile the situation in Afghanistan remains, three years after the U.S. overthrew the Taliban and less than four weeks before presidential elections there.

The U.S. President, George W. Bush, described Afghanistan last June as ``the first victory in the war on terror''. A year ago, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, declared that major combat operations were over and an era of stabilisation and reconstruction had begun.

Taliban resurgent

But despite some progress in education, health and infrastructure, Afghanistan remains far more unstable than Western leaders care to admit. Afghanistan is a nation-building challenge to which even Iraq pales in comparison.

Attacks attributed to a resurgent Taliban and its Al-Qaeda allies have claimed more than 1,000 lives in the past 12 months. Low-level conflict in the south and east has become the norm. Foreign aid workers have been repeatedly targeted, as in Herat on Sunday. Much of the country beyond Kabul is considered insecure.

Major General Eric Olson, the operational commander of U.S. forces, has admitted that his troops were ``not even close'' to defeating the militants. The 14,000-strong Afghan national army is struggling to make an impact.

Western leaders are also counting on a victory for Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's pro-Western leader. But Mr. Karzai must first see off 17 challengers, the foremost of whom is Yunus Qanuni, an ethnic Tajik who has become, in effect, the candidate of the Northern Alliance warlords who seized Kabul with U.S. backing in 2001.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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