Remember Afghanistan? Insurgents bring suicide terror to country

Let's see how many wars Bush can lose before 2008? Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan...

Remember Afghanistan? Insurgents bring suicide terror to country

A suicide bomber yesterday rode into town, killing at least 20 in the deadliest insurgent attack since the US invasion. More than 1,600 were killed in 2005, and the murder rate is rising. The rule of law has collapsed. The government is trapped in its own fortified compound in the capital. Soon, Britain will commit another 3,500 troops to a dangerous mission with no clear goals or exit strategy...

By Kim Sengupta
Published: 17 January 2006

At least 20 people died in a suicide attack in Afghanistan when a motorcyclist detonated his explosives-packed vest. In a separate strike, five Afghan soldiers were killed when a 15-year-old suicide bomber threw himself in front of their convoy. On Sunday, a Canadian diplomat was among three victims of a similar blast.

It was the bloodiest 48 hours in what is turning into the most violent month in Afghanistan since the country was "liberated" during the US-led invasion in October 2001. And it is into this increasingly savage insurgency that up to 3,500 more British troops will be sent from March.

The most lethal attack was on the town of Spin Boldak near the border with Pakistan, the birthplace of the Taliban. The relentless rise in violence has been described as the "re-Talibanisation" of Afghanistan.

The new Taliban are deploying tactics that have torn Iraq to shreds, and Afghanistan is seeing a surge in the previously unknown practice of suicide bombings ­ 25 in four months. This is seen as the reintroduction of al-Qa'ida into Afghanistan ­ a devastating example of how over-extending the "war on terror" into Iraq is rebounding on the West with vengeance. Tony Blair declared after the overthrow of the Taliban and the retreat of Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida that "this time we will not walk away" , a reference to how Afghanistan was allowed to sink into its cycle of destruction after the West had used and then abandoned the country in the Cold War against the Soviets.

President George Bush, supported by Mr Blair, the critics say, has subsequently neglected Afghanistan, toppled Saddam, and spawned " al-Qa'ida in Iraq" led by the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This is the reality on the ground awaiting thousands of British troops being sent in the next few months into Afghanistan ­ a redeployment which in itself is part of the disengagement plan for Iraq.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article339090.ece