The troops were told the big combat operations were over ... but the Taliban are back, and the killing continues
By Nick Meo
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But in the deserts of Southern Afghanistan, once the Taliban's heartland, attacks on US forces and Western aid workers are on the increase.
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With American soldiers facing bloody attacks in Iraq and now perhaps a dramatic new intervention in Liberia, the US operation in Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a forgotten war in a hostile land. Not, however, that it is small-scale.
By one estimate the military spends around $1 billion a month -- about the same as the Kabul government receives annually from the US -- and 8500 US troops are based here along with troops from allies such as Romania, Thailand and South Korea.
It's a military deployment that increasingly looks as if it will drag on for years tying down troops and eating up money in a spluttering guerrilla war. The Taliban and their allies refuse to be beaten, haphazard attacks continue, central government control is more a hope than a reality, and any sense of normality returning is a long way off in the edgy streets of Kandahar.
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But reports of shifting terrorist training camps in Pakistan where young recruits are learning about explosives, suggest the enemy could become more deadly. Hekmatayar is said to be recruiting revenge-hungry Afghans who lost family members to coalition bombs, and money and weapons are still coming through Pakistan from Arab sympathisers.
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