Corruption and coalition failures spur Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan

BY JAMES RUPERT
Newsday Staff Correspondent

June 17, 2006, 11:06 PM EDT

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The United States and its allies have been forced to launch their biggest military operation of the war here because in the 55 months since ousting the Taliban movement from power, they neglected to establish minimal security or governance in the country's south, analysts say.

That failure has let the Taliban walk back in through an open door, say Afghan and foreign officials in Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar. Afghan officials estimate thousands of Taliban guerrillas, many recently infiltrated from Pakistan, are in the five southernmost provinces, where their attacks culminated this spring in a spasm of bombings, ambushes and assassinations against scattered government targets....

Under coalition supervision since 2001, what has passed for "government" in the south amounts mostly to "corrupt, local warlords who allied themselves with U.S. forces," said Abdul Qadar Noorzai, the director in Kandahar of Afghanistan's government human rights commission. These local strongmen have taken control over the weak state bureaucracies and police forces, and much of the opium trade, Noorzai said.

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