There was a strong sense of hope and progress in 2001 when the US drove away the Taliban to the far outskirts and mountains of Afghanistan in their immediate retaliation to the 9/1 attacks by al-Qaeda.
But six years down the line and the country is struggling to even maintain peace and stability, let alone gallop towards prosperity. The 70,000 odd Afghan military personnel might appear huge in number, but the naked truth is that they are still heavily dependent on foreign forces to fight the Taliban insurgents.
The latest report on the escalating violence in Afghanistan suggest that it is up by 30% over last year and the statistics indeed do not augur good times for the war-ravaged nation. The US still head the military operation in the Asian nation but talks of withdrawal of troops by other nations, including Canada have been rife.
The whispers of pullout of foreign troops from Afghanistan have led many to predict an immediate collapse of the Afghan government. United Nations’ Afghan envoy, Tom Koenigs, is the latest figure to add his name to the list of those against any troop pullout from the nation. M. Koenigs is certain that the Afghan army cannot contain the Taliban militant insurgency on its own and desperately needs foreign help to do so.
One of the prominent nations still involved in Afghanistan is Canada, which has no fewer than 2,500 troops stationed there. In the past few months, the opposition party in Canada has consistently demanded no troop-deployment extension beyond February 2009. Should all nations, who have their troops stationed in Afghanistan, decide to withdraw, the nation could easily fall into the hands of the Taliban once again.
Image Source: My Thing Links
Source: Canada
