this morning on British troops in Lashkar Gah.
The problem stems from a deal made with local tribal leaders in Waziristan six weeks ago by President Musharraf of Pakistan. He agreed to pull back Pakistani forces from the troubled region, where they had been taking heavy casualties in the hunt for al-Qaeda and their affiliates. The truce has given al-Qaeda space to regroup and allowed them to develop new training grounds.
Neither the Taliban nor al-Qaeda are the movements they were five years ago in the aftermath of 9/11. They have mutated and changed shape like amoebae. Leaders have changed; tactics and techniques are new.
The so-called Taliban forces now fighting across southern Afghanistan, and creeping close to the villages around Kabul itself, are actually a coalition of local and outside elements. They include local tribesmen and hardline jihadi militants from the old Taliban of 1992, and such groups as the mainly Pashtun Hezbi Islami led by Gulbadin Hekmatyar. Mixed in with them are 'foreign fighters'.
