Some 3000 US troops recently deployed to insurgent-heavy provinces near Kabul
Maydan Shahr, Afghanistan - The 3,000 new American troops who arrived in recent weeks in Logar and Wardak provinces, both of which border Kabul, face a formidable challenge: establishing control in areas with little government presence and where insurgents operate freely.
In Band-e-chak, for example, a district capital in Wardak, gun-toting Taliban fighters regularly come into town on their motorbikes to do some shopping. They buy their produce and go home, driving past government offices unmolested.
These provinces could be a key testing ground for the Obama administration’s Afghan strategy, which may include a surge of thousands of US forces countrywide.
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In provinces just south of Kabul, the insurgents have a shadow government that polices roads and runs courts.
Porak, Afghanistan - After a gang of thieves had continually terrorized an Afghan neighborhood near here months ago, locals decided they’d had enough. “We complained several times to the government and even showed them where the thieves lived,” says Ahmad, who goes by one name.
But the bandits continued to operate freely. So the villagers turned to the Taliban.
The militants’ parallel government here in Logar Province – less than 40 miles from Kabul, the capital – tried and convicted the men, tarred their faces, paraded them around, and threatened to chop off their hands if they were caught stealing in the future. The thieves never bothered the locals again.
In several provinces close to Kabul, the government’s presence is vanishing or already nonexistent, residents say. In its place, a more effective – and brutal – Taliban shadow government is spreading and winning local support.
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Kabul, Afghanistan - A Wednesday attack that killed three Western aid workers in Afghanistan raises concerns that the Taliban is attempting to force the expulsion of all foreign humanitarian workers from the troubled country.
“This was the worst attack in many years and is a major escalation of hostilities,” says Sayed Rahim Satar, vice chairman of the Afghan NGO Coordinating Bureau.
The assault signals a shift in the Taliban’s strategy toward a policy of direct confrontation with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), says Waliullah Rahmani of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies.
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