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U.N. Envoy Warns of More Taliban Attacks
The top U.N. representative for Afghanistan warned Tuesday that Taliban insurgents in the country are likely to step up attacks in coming weeks, before the onset of winter, but he also praised the government's progress in curtailing opium cultivation and said the country is not doomed to failure. Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, told the U.N. Security Council that the Taliban has made significant strides in recent months, expanding its operations from southern and eastern Afghanistan to positions around the capital, Kabul. Insurgent attacks in July and August were up 40 percent over last year, making it the most violent two-month period since the United States toppled the Taliban regime in 2001. "We must expect that this number of incidents will continue over the next weeks," Eide said, noting that the insurgents' target list had grown to include humanitarian aid workers. He said he anticipated that the insurgents would conduct operations throughout Afghanistan's winter months -- a period in which Taliban fighters have reduced their activities in the past. Eide voiced frustration at the Security Council for assigning the United Nations ambitious new responsibilities in Afghanistan but failing to provide adequate financial resources. He said it can take as long as a year to secure finances to employ additional staff members at the U.N. mission in Kabul. Despite the setbacks, Eide said he would "caution against the kind of gloom-and-doom statements we've seen recently" about Afghanistan. He said that many of the critics who say international efforts to support democracy in Afghanistan have failed are "people who scarcely put their feet on the ground" in the country. Eide cited three areas of progress in Afghanistan that he said had been overlooked: an improvement in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan after the election of Asif Ali Zardari as Pakistan's president; the decision by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to reshuffle his cabinet after international criticism of government corruption; and a sharp reduction in the number of Afghan provinces cultivating opium poppies. Posted by: Fred 2008-10-16 |
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