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Al-Qaeda aiding Taliban resurgence
Nearly four years after a U.S.-led military intervention toppled it from power, the Taliban has reemerged as a potent threat to stability in Afghanistan.Though it's a far cry from the mass movement that overran most of the country in the 1990s, today's Taliban is fighting a guerrilla war with new weapons, including portable anti-aircraft missiles, and equipment bought with cash sent through Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, according to Afghan and Western officials. While it was in power, the Taliban provided safe haven to bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The violence continued Thursday. A homemade bomb hit a U.S. convoy, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding two others, near the southern city of Kandahar. A surge of violence since winter has killed about 1,000 people in Afghanistan -- 59 U.S. soldiers among them. Al Qaeda's monetary support is crucial, officials say. The money is coming from "rogue elements and factional elements living in the Middle East," Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview. Lt. George Hughbanks, an Army intelligence officer in Zabul province -- one of the worst hit by the Taliban insurgency, said: "Al Qaeda is channeling money and equipment." The Taliban is now a disparate assemblage of radical groups estimated to number several thousand, far fewer than when it was in power before November 2001. The groups are linked by a loose command structure and a desire to drive out U.S.-led coalition and NATO troops, topple U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai and reimpose hard-line Islamic rule in Afghanistan, according to Afghan and Western officials and experts. The new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald E. Neumann, said Thursday that the Taliban had "absolutely no chance" of derailing the Sept. 18 legislative elections because security would be too tight. Some experts fear the Taliban's resurgence may be part of an Al Qaeda strategy aimed at keeping the U.S. military stressed and bleeding in Iraq and in Afghanistan. "I think" Al Qaeda is "opening a second front," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence analyst who's now at the Middle East Institute in Washington. "I don't think the elections are really the focus." U.S. officials said they had no proof of such an Al Qaeda-coordinated strategy. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-08-20 |
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