In Afghanistan, Violence Stalls Renewal Effort
By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 25 — In the middle of the main road between Kabul and Kandahar lie two bombed-out, rusted fuel trucks, destroyed in American strikes in October 2001. That no one — not the Americans, nor international aid workers, nor Afghans themselves — has dragged them out of the way shows how little has been done to mend Afghanistan since the 2001 war, despite promises of copious foreign assistance.
In a very real sense, the war here has not ended — as shown by an attack today that killed two American soldiers and by a planned visit on Sunday from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Nearly every day, there are killings, explosions, shootings and targeted attacks on foreign aid workers, Afghan officials, and American forces, as well as continuing feuding between warlords in the regions.
No clear picture exists of who will provide the security to stop the bloodshed: the government of President Hamid Karzai, which still has no national army or police force; or the international force of 5,000 peacekeepers here in the capital; or the 11,500 Americans, Romanians and other foreign soldiers still in the provinces hunting for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
For months now, the American military here has talked of moving into "Phase Four," which would mean winding down combat activities and entering a period of reconstruction. Yet the military is still mounting large-scale combat operations in the pursuit of armed groups of rebels in mountain hideouts, and turning villages upside down in a search for suspects and weapons that is making the foreign presence ever more unpopular with Afghans.
In southern and eastern Afghanistan, the exiled Taliban movement has been resurgent since December. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a renegade mujahedeen commander and former American ally, has called for a holy war against "occupying forces." ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/26/international/worldspecial/26AFGH.html>
Carl
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