Word: nato
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...small base, made up of soldiers from the Tenth Mountain 2-4 Infantry, Charlie Company 1-4 Infantry Regiment and Romanian troops from Task Force Calugareni, which took control of Zabul on 31 July when the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) took command of southern Afghanistan from the U.S. The mission of the troops at the base is to provide security to the district. Until a few weeks ago that meant daily patrols, visiting villages, checking up on reports of Taliban activity, and generally making their presence known. But these days FOB Maizan has had to limit those...
...bolstered by billions of dollars in Western aid and the firepower of 18,000 U.S. troops, Karzai won Afghanistan's first presidential election in a half-century. Since then, nothing has gone right. Taliban guerrillas have overrun swaths of territory in the south, sparking a battle for control with NATO forces that has left 55 Western troops dead in five weeks. Squabbles between Western military commanders and the Karzai government over antidrug policies have allowed poppy growth to reach an all-time peak. It's a sign of how much security has deteriorated in Kabul that Karzai's movements...
...embassy in the city center. It was the second suicide attack in a week, following on Monday's bombing near the airport that killed five people. And it came at the end of a week of fierce clashes in the south; the strength of Taliban resistance has surprised NATO commanders, who on Thursday called on member states to send a further 2,000 troops to reinforce its counterinsurgency mission in the Taliban's heartland...
...Karzai's enemies are, indeed, on the run, events over the past week suggest they are far from being defeated. Besides the two suicide attacks in the capital and insurgent attacks scattered throughout the south and west, Taliban forces have mounted a surprisingly strong resistance to an ongoing NATO operation near Kandahar in which both sides have suffered substantial casualties. The bombings in the capital "looks to be the insurgents lashing out against us for the pressure we are putting on them in the south," says Luke Knittig, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. "Conventional warfare...
...With NATO still finding its feet just a month after taking control of the south from U.S. forces, the Taliban appears determined to do its utmost to test the appetite of the Western alliance for a sustained and messy counterinsurgency campaign. But Knittig insists that the alliance will not be swayed. "NATO has signed on the line for a long-term commitment to Afghanistan...