As MPs gather in Ottawa to discuss Canada's more combative role in southern Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official and coalition commanders painted two disparate images Sunday of where the war is headed. In a weekend interview with The Canadian Press, insurgent spokesman Qari Yuosaf Ahmedi said the Taliban are convinced the resolve of the Canadian people is weak. As suicide attacks and roadside blasts increase, the public will quickly grow weary, he said. “We think that when we kill enough Canadians they will quit war and return home,” Mr. Ahmedi said in an interview, conducted through a translator, over a satellite telephone.Given the fact troops are already deployed, Mr. Ahmedi suggested Monday's House of Commons debate as a sign of indecision among Canadians. In addition to his fire-breathing rhetoric, the Taliban's public relations spokesman claimed that the insurgency had recruited 180 suicide bombers for operations in and around Kandahar over the next few weeks. He said they are prepared to attack Canadians “any one else, at any place and at any time.”
But coalition commanders had a vastly different assessment, painting the Taliban as cornered, marginalized into rural pockets, struggling to raise money and find recruits. “The reason we think the Taliban are falling apart is because the pattern of attacks we're seeing is not co-ordinated,” said Major Quentin Innis, a Canadian liaison officer with the local community. “It may appear there are a lot of attacks going on and those are regretable.”