Taliban insurgency major Afghan challenge

KABUL, Nov 12 (Reuters) Afghanistan's biggest challenge remains the Taliban insurgency, the head of a visiting UN mission said today on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the overthrow of the Taliban's puritanical Islamist government.

The intensity of the Taliban's fightback this year has surprised NATO and US led troops in the bloodiest year since the group's ouster in 2001. More than 3,100 people, a third of them civilians, have died so far this year.

''I think the single most important challenge facing this country is insurgency, fighting the Taliban insurgency,'' Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima told a news conference in Kabul after talks with government officials.

The illegal drug industry in the world's largest producer of heroin was another major challenge, he added.

The country, long one of the world's poorest, also must build institutions such as a professional and independent judiciary, police and army and extend the rule of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Karzai has led Afghanistan since US led troops toppled the Taliban on November. 13, 2001, after they refused to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the September. 11 attacks on the United States.

He was elected president in a national election in 2004 but has struggled to extend the government's writ in the face of more fighting and slower reconstruction and development.

The UN Security Council delegation arrived on Saturday to review the progress and challenges Afghanistan faces as it strives to cement peace and stability after decades of conflict and the Taliban's rule.

It is expected to meet ordinary Afghans and travel outside Kabul, including to the dangerous southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace and capital of a province which has seen some of the worst fighting this year.

Insecurity has badly affected reconstruction work and forced many aid workers to stop operations in most parts of the south and east, the focus of the insurgency and Taliban main's bastion.

Most aid groups in Kandahar have stopped work or slowed to virtually nothing, officials there say.

REUTERS AKJ RK1925