US expects more violence as coalition extends reach

Washington, June 21 : U S forces and their Afghan allies expect more violence and clashes with Islamist Taliban fighters as the coalition extends its reach into the country, the U S military said.

Afghanistan has seen the bloodiest violence since U S-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001, with almost 1,000 violent deaths this year, including 47 American troops and 18 other foreign soldiers.

''We expect more violence still as the Coalition, NATO-ISAF and Afghan forces expand throughout the country, reduce the safe havens and sanctuaries and constrain the enemies' ability to operate freely,'' said Army Lt. Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman for Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is preparing to move into the southern heartland of the Taliban, which will allow the United States to pull out about 3,000 of the 23,000 troops it has in Afghanistan.

Lawrence said the U S forces and the fledgling Afghan army were initiating battles with the Taliban as part of an attempt to spread the writ of the Kabul government into more provinces of the war-torn nation riven by ethnic and tribal divisions.

''With that initiative comes greater opportunity for contact with those enemy fighters, which unfortunately can mean a great number of casualties,'' she said.

''We anticipated this upsurge. We expected the turbulence as the region adjusts to change and develops participatory governments,'' added Lawrence.

COMEBACK FOR THE TALIBAN?

Analysts and some Afghan officials say the renewed fighting is also a sign of growing support for Taliban rebels and disillusionment with the government and its foreign backers -- underscored by violent anti-U S demonstrations after a traffic accident in Kabul last month.

Security analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said Kabul had weak control over deeply conservative southern areas, where expanding government reach triggered ''a reassertion of Pashtun identity, which in Afghanistan has always been violent.'' ''What you now see is an Afghan government that lacks the power and troop strength to replace U S forces, NATO forces which are seen as vulnerable and an attractive target, and a Taliban force which is able not so much to reconstitute itself but to cross back from Pakistan into Afghanistan,'' he said.

The southern provinces that host the Taliban are also rife with common criminals, tribal strife and narco-trafficking, Cordesman and other analysts said.

Lawrence said talk of a Taliban comeback was overblown and ''the enemy is attempting to give the image of strength and resurgence through the media by use of exaggeration, lies, and violent attacks against civilian targets.'' ''The strength and the influence of the Taliban has grown in some areas, but not all the violence can be attributed to the Taliban,'' she added.

Reuters