I don't have a proper update, but -
- -The Afghan army may be up to 70,000, in various states of readiness [Roggio]
- -France will send 1,000 additional troops (not clear their deployment will be). Spain is indicating that it, too, would like to stay out of the hotzones (i.e. the South).
- -Canada has signaled that it is amenable to more troops, so long as it isn't pulling all the weight (the Canucks are on the front lines now for a long while there).
- -NATO meeting is coming soon.
It's a border war with the Taliban. (cf. US, Afghan, Paki joint "intelligence outposts" on the border).
But, then again, it's not altogether, with borders within borders (don't imagine that the Taliban are in caves somewhere, right?):
GARMSIR, Afghanistan -- Perched on the banks of the Helmand River, this desolate town occupied by British forces marks Afghanistan's de facto border: Beyond here, the Afghan government is powerless and Taliban insurgents hold sway, their ranks replenished by recruits who enter unchallenged from Pakistan.
Since 2006, Garmsir and other parts of Helmand province have changed hands between the British and Taliban forces at least three times, largely because there have been too few British ground troops to hold captured territory. Despite Defense Minister John Reid's early hope that 3,000 British forces could pacify Helmand without "firing a shot," the British have lost 89 troops to fighting in the province, where violence surged 60 percent last year, testing NATO's ability to stabilize Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtun heartland. -WaPo, this past Sunday.
Since 2006, Garmsir and other parts of Helmand province have changed hands between the British and Taliban forces at least three times, largely because there have been too few British ground troops to hold captured territory. Despite Defense Minister John Reid's early hope that 3,000 British forces could pacify Helmand without "firing a shot," the British have lost 89 troops to fighting in the province, where violence surged 60 percent last year, testing NATO's ability to stabilize Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtun heartland. -WaPo, this past Sunday.
