http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22803565-2703,00.html
Afghan 'crisis' as Taliban gain ground November 22, 2007 LONDON: The conflict in Afghanistan has reached 'crisis proportions', with the resurgent Taliban present in more than half the country and closing in on Kabul. If NATO, the lead force operating in Afghanistan, is to have any effect on the insurgency, troop numbers will have to be doubled to at least 80,000, a new report says. "The Taliban has shown itself to be a truly resurgent force," the Senlis Council, an independent think-tank with a permanent presence in Afghanistan, wrote in its study Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the brink. "Its ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt," it said. "The insurgency now controls vast swaths of unchallenged territory including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries." Senlis said its research had established that the Taliban, driven out of Afghanistan by the US invasion in late 2001, had rebuilt a permanent presence in 54 per cent of the country and was finding it easy to recruit new followers. It was also increasingly using Iraq-style tactics, such as roadside and suicide bombs, to powerful effect, and had built a stable network of financial support, funding its operations with the proceeds from Afghanistan's booming opium trade. "It is a sad indictment of the current state of Afghanistan that the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when," the report said. "Their oft-stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever." NATO has just over 40,000 troops operating in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force. The US and Britain are the largest contributors, with 15,000 and 7,700 soldiers, respectively. Australians and Dutch make up the bulk of the force in the province of Oruzgan, where Diggers have been hit by a string of recent Taliban attacks. Two Australians have been killed. Those numbers pale in comparison with Iraq, where at the peak of operations there were almost 200,000 troops on the ground and where around 160,000 remain. While Iraq is showing the first signs of an improvement in security, Afghanistan's situation is becoming more precarious, Senlis argued, underlining the need for a rapid increase in troop numbers in a country that is larger than Iraq. Senlis said that without the troop "surge", and renewed efforts to win over the Afghan population and make reconstruction take hold, the country was in danger of falling back into the hands of the Taliban. Reuters
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