Fears rising over Kandahar falling back to Taliban

[Naveed Yaseen]

* NATO’s Kandahar spokesman says ‘situation not going down the tubes’
* Officials, residents say Taliban active at night across city

KANDAHAR: Southern Afghanistan’s largest city, Kandahar, is slipping back under Taliban control as overstretched US troops focus on clearing insurgents from the countryside – a potentially alarming setback for President Barack Obama’s war strategy. Afghan authorities promise a counteroffensive against the Taliban in Kandahar - a pledge that appears aimed primarily at boosting public morale after a devastating bombing killed 43 people on Tuesday. Losing Kandahar, a city of nearly 1 million and the Taliban’s former headquarters, would be a huge symbolic blow because it is effectively the capital of the ethnic Pashtun-dominated south, the main battlefield of the Afghan war.

It is difficult to measure the extent of Taliban control, and NATO officials publicly discount the possibility that Kandahar is about to fall to the Taliban. Thousands of US and Canadian troops are deployed throughout the province and around the city, which includes a major NATO base. NATO officials say the US troop buildup in Afghanistan will enable them to send more troops into Kandahar.

Situation: “Because there’s one bombing, it doesn’t mean the situation is going down the tubes,” said Major Mario Couture, a spokesman for NATO in Kandahar province. Nevertheless, many Afghans believe more Taliban forces are operating clandestinely in the city, while the Taliban movement tightens its grip on districts just outside the urban centre. As guerrillas, the Taliban doubtless do not want to capture and run the city. Instead their goal is probably to wield enough influence to block any government efforts to expand services, prevent international relief agencies from operating there, force merchants to pay protection money and undermine the government’s image in one of the country’s major cities.

Taliban activity: “The Taliban are inside the city. They are very active. They can do anything they want,” said an Afghan employee of an international aid organisation who requested anonymity. The Taliban’s resurgence in Kandahar city, the movement’s main power base during the 1990s, has been slow and gradual over the past four years, said an international security official who is familiar with the area.

These days, the Taliban control many of the city’s streets at night, the official said. Residents who spoke to the AP also said the Taliban were active at night, though they did not describe them as being in control. The security official also pointed to a number of attacks, aside from Tuesday’s bombing, that indicate the Taliban want to take over the city. One was last year’s brazen bomb and rocket attack on a major prison that freed hundreds of the Taliban and other prisoners. ap

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