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An ordinary war in Afghanistan

Five years after western troops were sent under a United-Nations mandate, the toll of dead civilians and soldiers goes on rising. The Afghans are disillusioned and have new confidence in the Taliban. The various groups of armed militants have been claiming more than one mortal attack a week since the beginning of 2006, nearly one a day at some times. Each assault kills a few Nato's soldiers, afghan policemen or several civilians, sometimes all of them. It's getting worse though there is a lull in winter, the snows slow down the moving of men. Many observers fear terrorist activities will resume in the course of coming March. The term “Taliban” is though, no any longer appropriate for those armed militants because those groups are now more plethoric. The ground of their fighting is still to reject the foreign occupants, unfaithful to Islam. Some researchers call those new faces of militant insurgence "neo-Taliban". Their fighting tactics are simple: there is no front, no insurgent camp clearly defined. It is a guerrilla warfare made up of country people, theological students, actually rather ordinary people and some foreign fighters there to train them. The targets of their attacks are mainly the convoys of foreign soldiers fighting for the NATO Forces, and as well the symbols of the state: ministries, officials, schools, etc. The suicide bombing attacks, the mines triggered at a distance are the two arms mostly used by insurgents.

Afghanistan - 2006

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