TEMPLATE ANALYSIS

One attack on a hotel popular with foreigners and Afghans who have done well for themselves under the current administration of Hamid Karzai, was followed yesterday with a raid on an Afghan military base. Both attacks put a lie to any claims that the Taliban who have been very quite over the winter period were no longer a force to be reckoned with.

Whether the Taliban were finished or not, no one can really knows, however,  based in the ferocity of the fighting it is fair to assume that they can still call on volunteers who are prepared to fight to the death, which also means that those who are fighting for them believe in the cause they are fighting for.

Afghanistan under the US led alliance has seen little in terms of real change, the administration of Hamid Karzai has swallowed the bulk of the foreign aid that has come into the country, and whatever has trickled down to the rest of the country has not made any difference to the ordinary Afghan, whom the Taliban are calling upon to act as volunteers for their’ jihad.’

Afghanistan like the subsequent conflicts is proving to be a great lost opportunity for the outside world – as late as 2005, that is some four years into this war, the Taliban were struggling to find recruits to fight for them, that is because many Afghans genuinely believed that America would help rebuild their war ravaged country.

This year,  as the coalition prepares to leave, you will only find people glad to see the back of an army that has presided over a corrupt government that won a questionable election and that now resembles Rome under the Emperor Nero.

And what of the Taliban –  let’s hope they have learned from their own excesses when they were in power,  and to reaction they got when they were ousted.

If they haven’t, then Afghans may fighting once again to get rid of them.