Taliban not in a position to recapture Afghanistan: Bush

Washington, Sep 8 (UNI) US President George W Bush has asserted that Taliban fighters will fail in their bid to recapture power in Afghanistan, even as militants have escalated their attacks, giving a tough time to Afghan and alliances forces, particularly in Southern part of the country.

Continuing a series of speeches on terrorism ahead of the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon, near here, he told an audience in the Southern state of Georgia yesterday that he knew that fight was not yet over, but he had no doubt that the Taliban would lose.

President Bush recalled that US-led forces had ousted the Islamist group from power in Kabul when it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks carried out by the al-Qaeda network.

''Five years later, Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants are desperately trying to retake control of that country. They will fail. They will fail because the Afghan people have tasted freedom. They will fail because their vision is no match for a democracy accountable to its citizens. They will fail because they are no match for the military forces of a free Afghanistan, a NATO alliance, and the United States of America,'' he said.

In what he called an update on American security since the September 11 attacks, President Bush said the ''United States is safer, but still not safe''.

He particularly spoke of improvements in airport security, saying the US intelligence agencies have been reorganised to share information in a better way about the suspected terrorists.

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