What do today's attacks say about Afghanistan in the months ahead?

March 04, 2009
Posted by Nancy Youssef - McClatchy blog
What do today's attacks say about Afghanistan in the months ahead?

What do today's attacks say about Afghanistan in the months ahead?
Today, the Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack outside the largest U.S/coalition military installation in Afghanistan, which killed three contractors. It was the latest attack in what has already been a violent year against troops in Afghanistan.

It happened outside Bagram Air Base, which about 40 north of Kabul and is the capital of military operations. It was built by the Soviets during their time in Afghanistan and later the Taliban and the Northern Alliance fought for it during the civil war. There were reportedly two explosions Wednesday " a car bomb followed by a suicide bomb.

At the Pentagon, commanders and civilian leaders alike had warned that 2009 would be a violent. The secretary said it; so did the top commander there, Gen. David McKiernan. There will be more troops they argued, and those troops will go into places that foreign forces have not been before.

So far 31 American troops have been killed this year, compared to 155 in all of 2008, which incidentally was the deadliest year for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Another 21 coalition troops have also been killed, compared to 139 last year.

That the rise in attacks is happening so early, so quickly and before the 17,000 troops President Obama has committed to sending into new parts of Afghanistan is troubling commanders at the Pentagon. Some fret the numbers are rising because the U.S. military and its coalition partners are finding a more sophisticated Taliban that has finessed its attacks while the U.S. military was focused on Iraq. What the numbers portend once the troops arrived is a very violent year, they say. Perhaps the strategy review under way in Washington on the way ahead in Afghanistan will find a way for the troops to do more without taking such a spike in fatal attacks.