[milwguy]

Looks like this summer could see big battle for Afghanistan. We need to realize this will be tough and dirty, and prepare the public for what is ahead. If we can defeat this offensive in a big way, and get some co-operation from the Paki's on their side of the border, we can be successsful. Of course, our MSM will portray the rise in violence as a failure on our part, when in reality, it is part of the waxing and waning of the war we are in. A very long war at that.

[hflynn]

The Taliban will be sorry in a relatively short time.

[coconutt2000]

Don't count on help from the MSM. Despite what half of them might say on TV about Afghanistan being the only justified war in the war on terror, they'd be protesting that occupation if we hadn't decided to expand the war on terror to include Iraq.

The MSM is predominately anti-Republican, and thus any war, justified or not that a Republican President gets into is wrong. They're great cheerleaders when a Democrat is in the Oval Office, especially when that Democrat is wrong.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

This guy is the pakistani tokyo rose.

I don't call a 100 armed thugs taking over a remote village a military victory.

[JustDoItAlways]

About 50 of them were killed or captured including the area commander so it was not a good start for the new Taliban offensive.

[Brilliant]

"Meet Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani, the only real hope for the Taliban resistance movement to be successful against US-led forces in Afghanistan."





In that case, the Taliban will soon be without hope.

[Democrap]

KABUL (Reuters) - A senior Taliban military commander, Mullah Dadullah, has been captured in Afghanistan, the BBC reported on Friday, quoting high-ranking Afghan officials. It said on its Web site that Dadullah was captured by international troops in the southern province of Kandahar.

Win some lose some. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060519/ts_nm/afghan_taliban_dc

[mark502inf]

There are several factors at work.

First, Haqqani is probably their most capable military leader and regardless of the cause, you have to take battlefield competence into account.

Second, the Pashtun tribe which fuels the insurgency and is the source of the Taliban straddles the east and south Afghan-Pak border. Violence in the north & west parts of the country while still occurring, is at very low levels by Afghan historical standards.

Third, the April US offensive in the east with PakMil cooperation on their side of the border has defeated the TB elements and establsished Afghan army & police presence along the border and in areas where it has never been.

Fourth, our coalition partners are taking over security in the south and it is the Taliban avowed strategy to cause casualties in coalition members in order to precipitate their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Fifth, while PakMil cooperation in the east is good, in the south the Paki Army is oriented inward toward the separatist movement in Baluchistan with resultantly little anti-Taliban operations in the border region.

Bottom line, the Taliban are focusing their efforts in the south where they are relatively strongest in an attempt to split the coalition. They will make significant size (100+ pax) attacks against coalition troops and Afghan police in the southern provinces while using IEDs and occasional suicide bombers in the rest of the country to prevent security forces from repositioning. If our coalition holds together and continues to fight as aggressively as the Canadians are now doing, the Taliban will be defeated in the south and the planned NATO assumption of security operations for the whole country will proceed.