This piece analyses the Taliban hunts and how n why it is taking it so long to eliminate the threat in the region. BBC NEWS
"If we get it right, the Afghan people will turn the Taliban out"
The top military commander in the US, Adm Michael Mullen, says he does not know how long it will take for security to improve in Afghanistan.
He warned that the Taliban were "much more violent, much more organised, and so there's going to be fighting that is associated with this".
But he said that if the US gets its strategy right, the Afghan people themselves will turn the Taliban out.
The US will boost its 33,000 soldiers with another 30,000 this year.
They will join 32,000 other Nato troops already in the country battling a resurgent Taleban.
Earlier this month US Marines launched the first major Afghan operation of US President Barack Obama's presidency.
The Afghan people are much more uncertain now about their future
Admiral Michael Mullen
About 4,000 marines - many of them redeployed from operations in Iraq - moved into the Helmand River, supported by helicopters and Afghan troops.
Adm Mullen, speaking exclusively to the BBC's Arabic service at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, said he was confident he now had enough forces to hold territory captured from the Taliban.
Asked how soon the security situation in the country would improve, he said: "I don't know how long.
"I know that it's gotten progressively worse over the last three, three-and-a-half years, since 2006, and the Taliban has gotten much better."
But the fighting was "not the main effort".
"In the end, if we get it right for the Afghan people, the Afghan people will turn the Taliban out.
"And that's the answer in counter-insurgency," Adm Mullen said.
He said that over the next 12 to 18 months "we really need to turn the tide".
With violence increasing since 2006, security had worsened, and "the Afghan people are much more uncertain now about their future".
But establishing "robust security" would take longer, he added.
In fact, no ideology has been as genocidal as Islam… Islam has killed more than 5 times the number of people killed by communism. In the total numbers we have updated over 80 million Christians killed by Muslims in 500 years in the Balkan states, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia. Then we have India. The official estimate number of Muslim slaughters of Hindus is 80 million. However, Muslim historian Firistha (b. 1570) wrote (in either Tarikh-i Firishta or the Gulshan-i Ibrahim) that Muslims slaughtered over 400 million Hindus up to the peak of Islamic rule of India, bringing the Hindu population down from 600 mil to 200 million at the time. With these new additions the Muslim genocide of non-Muslims since the birth of Mohammed would be over 669 million murders. Islam: The Religion of Genocide Perspective: Think the Spanish inquisition was bad? More people are killed by Islamists each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition* combined. The Spanish inquisition ( Tri...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Chinese efforts to spy on the Dutch are intensifying, with the focus on semiconductors, Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans said on Saturday. "The semiconductor industry, which we are technologically leading, or technology advanced, of course, to get that intellectual property - that's interesting to China," Brekelmans said in an interview on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore. The Dutch military intelligence agency said in its annual report in April last year that Chinese spies have targeted the Dutch semiconductor, aerospace and maritime industries to try to strengthen China's armed forces When asked if the spying had stopped, Brekelmans said: "It's continuing. In our newest intelligence reports, our intelligence agency said that the biggest cyber threat is coming from China, and that we do see most cyber activity when it comes to us being as from China. That was the case last year, but that's...
Kabul: Five members of the US-led international military coalition were killed on Saturday by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, the latest deadly attack against foreign troops since the Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive this week. The renewed violence came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai acknowledged that his government has been receiving funds from CIA for more than a decade as part of regular monthly assistance from the US government. Karzai told reporters at a news conference that the CIA's station chief in Kabul has assured him that regular funding the US intelligence agency gives his government will not be cut off. Karzai had earlier confirmed that his government had received such payments following a story published in The New York Times that said the CIA had given the Afghan National Security Council tens of millions of dollars in monthly payments delivered in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags. "The help and assistance f...
"If we get it right, the Afghan people will turn the Taliban out"The top military commander in the US, Adm Michael Mullen, says he does not know how long it will take for security to improve in Afghanistan.He warned that the Taliban were "much more violent, much more organised, and so there's going to be fighting that is associated with this".But he said that if the US gets its strategy right, the Afghan people themselves will turn the Taliban out.The US will boost its 33,000 soldiers with another 30,000 this year.They will join 32,000 other Nato troops already in the country battling a resurgent Taleban.Earlier this month US Marines launched the first major Afghan operation of US President Barack Obama's presidency.The Afghan people are much more uncertain now about their future
Comments