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Violence Linked to Taliban Swells in Afghanistan
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At a news conference Tuesday, Jawed Ludin, a spokesman for Karzai, said the government had evidence that Taliban and al Qaeda fighters kicked off that effort in earnest on June 1, with the unsuccessful firing of the surface-to-air missile at a U.S. aircraft, and the suicide bombing during the funeral at the Kandahar mosque, although the Taliban has denied carrying out that attack.
"It's only logical to assume that [they] would have chosen this time to obviously set a plot in motion," he said. "The aim was to create maximum effect . . . maximum shock among the people."
Officials of NATO, which patrols Kabul and the more quiet northern and western sections of the country, are drafting plans to augment the alliance's 8,000 troops with additional forces in advance of the elections.
U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said the United States had a battalion standing by in case it needed to supplement the roughly 20,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
It remains unclear whether the level of violence this spring will ultimately prove greater or lower than the level last spring.
Capt. Jonathan Hopkins, adjutant to the battalion in Zabol, said his unit's analysis indicated that, apart from areas where troops had drawn fire by probing for Taliban hideouts, there were less attacks in the province this year.
But Hopkins noted the overall perception of insecurity could prove as harmful as a decline in security.
"If [nongovernmental aid organizations] think it's worse here, then they will react accordingly, no matter what the truth on the ground is," Hopkins said.
