 SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan - Afghanistan’s Taleban guerrillas are gaining strength and will step up attacks against government and foreign troops when spring comes next month, a Taleban commander said on Tuesday. “Taleban attacks will further increase with a decrease in the winter cold,” a former Taleban governor of Kandahar province, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Rahmani, told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.
Fighting in Afghanistan traditionally eases off during the winter months when mountain passes get snowed under in the brutal Afghan winter. But violence has surged in recent months, including 15 suicide blasts since November. US military officials say the Taleban have changed tactics since suffering heavy losses in clashes last summer and are now increasingly using roadside blasts and suicide bombers against soft targets. “American forces have become helpless before the Taleban’s suicide and other attacks,” Rahmani said. “The Taleban are inflicting heavy losses on American forces in men and material and it is to hide the cowardice and failure of their troops that America is reducing its forces.”
| Yeah, yeah, you'll slaughter us, we'll all commit suicide in front of the gates of Kabul ... |
| They say the same thing every year, though I'll admit that this year will probably be different. Now that they've taken over Waziristan they've got an operating base, which they didn't have before. The only way to handle it will be to go into Waziristan (both of them) after them, which'll make the Paks bitch and moan. Not that the Paks have any intention of going into Waziristan themselves, mind you... |
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