Word: qala
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
...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...
...meantime, he and Mann continue to organize tours to sites like Bamian and Qala-i-Jangi, a 19th century fortress some 12 miles (20 km) outside Mazar and one of the sites of final resistance by the Taliban against the Northern Alliance and the U.S.-led forces in 2001. Today, the bullet holes along the walls of the fortress remain unplastered. Shoib Najafizada, Afghan Logistics and Tours' man in Mazar, leads visitors around the rusty remnants of tanks and heavy artillery that lie strewn around. Like other guides, Najafizada offers firsthand accounts of some of the key moments...
...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...