Emboldened Taliban Reflected In More Attacks, Greater Reach

The Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, and promulgated a harsh and often unorthodox brand of Islamic law. The group intimidated and brutalized citizens, particularly women, destroyed Afghan culture, isolated the country internationally and allowed it to become a base for bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, in part, from camps in Afghanistan.

Following the attacks, U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan, toppled the Taliban and began an intense manhunt for bin Laden, who remains at large.

In the aftermath of the invasion, senior American, Afghan and Pakistani officials described the Taliban as a spent force. Today, that assessment is widely doubted.

"The question is, were they ever defeated, and I don't think they ever were," McNeill said.

Many analysts say they believe the Taliban continues to draw support from elements in Pakistan, a claim hotly disputed by the government in Islamabad. The consensus among independent intelligence analysts is that the Taliban leadership is headquartered in Pakistan's frontier city of Quetta, about 70 miles from the Afghan border.

"You can kill a few Talibs here in Afghanistan, but you should go and see where all these Talibs are trained, where they are brainwashed, where they are armed," said Hamidzada, Karzai's spokesman. "If you address the question in Pakistan, then I think the troops could go home very soon, because that's where the root cause of the problem is."

Karzai is trying to open negotiations with the Taliban, and he recently allowed South Korean officials to negotiate directly with the radical group for the release of 21 hostages, a move some believe undermined the authority of his government and boosted the legitimacy of the insurgents. Hamidzada said the hostage negotiations were allowed "under strict conditions" and solely for humanitarian reasons.

Today, there is a growing fear that the same factors that gave rise to the Taliban in the 1990s -- corruption, crime, dysfunctional government -- are contributing to its current revival, even though few people embrace the movement or want it to return to power.

"The strength of the Taliban is the weakness of the government, which is not able to establish its authority in the remote areas," said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. With rampant crime and corruption, former warlords and Taliban officials now in the government, and shooting incidents by NATO and U.S.-led forces that have killed too many civilians, he said, "after six years, the Taliban has come back with a stronger voice."

Hakim said an estimated 600 civilians were killed in the first half of the year in conflict-related incidents. A report by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, the security advisory group, tabulated 678 conflict-related deaths in the same period -- 347 caused by insurgents, 331 by coalition forces.

"Lawlessness and widespread corruption at the government level in Kabul have badly disappointed people with the Karzai regime," and civilian deaths caused by foreign troops have undercut the president's popularity, said Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former Pakistani ambassador to Kabul.

McNeill, the NATO commander, said that faster development is key to securing more popular support.