Word: musa
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...metaphor for the broader war. The soldiers from NATO's International Security Assistance Force are doing what they can against difficult odds. The language and tactics of counter-insurgency warfare are universal here: secure the population, help them build their communities. There are occasional victories: the Taliban leader of Musa Qala, in northern Helmand, switched sides and has become an effective local governor. But the incremental successes are reversible - schools are burned by the Taliban, police officers are murdered - because of a monstrous structural problem that defines the current struggle in Afghanistan...
...perfect metaphor for the broader war. The soldiers from NATO's International Security Assistance Force are doing what they can against difficult odds. The language and tactics of counterinsurgency warfare are universal here: secure the population, help them build their communities. There are occasional victories: the Taliban leader of Musa Qala, in northern Helmand, switched sides and has become an effective local governor. But the incremental successes are reversible - schools are burned by the Taliban, police officers are murdered - because of a monstrous structural problem that defines the current struggle in Afghanistan...
...Lebanese capital had been bracing for further violence, amid a political impasse that shows no sign of ending despite the mediation efforts of France last month and the Arab League over the past week. Amr Musa, the Arab League secretary-general, is set to return to Beirut Wednesday for another attempt to cajole the bickering Lebanese into accepting the League's proposal to elect a new President and form a national unity government. Few expect him to succeed. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak warned on Monday that patience with the feuding Lebanese is running out, and said that...
...battle to own Musa Qala is expected to be intense, because of its value to both sides. For the Taliban, there's major symbolic value in being able to hold a town in a country ostensibly under the control of more than 40,000 NATO troops and their Afghan allies. Musa Qala is also at the center of the opium industry, whose revenues fuel the Taliban insurgency, and its location near the mountains north of Helmand make it a useful command center for an insurgent army. For all the same reasons, it's important to NATO to dislodge the Taliban...
...problem for NATO, however, is that Musa Qala may be a very visible Taliban position, but it's only one of hundreds - by some estimates, today there is a permanent Taliban presence in more than half of Afghanistan, and NATO, struggling to expand its troop strength from reluctant European nations, is not well placed to roll it back. The breadth of the territory across which the Taliban now operates across southern Afghanistan all the way up to the capital reflects the extent to which the uncommitted civilian population is hedging its bets. With the harsh winter coming, Musa Qala...