Word: zabul
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...ways to avoid such unintended consequences, as that commander at Forward Operating Base Maizan in Zabul province noted, is to remember why foreign troops and internationals are in Afghanistan. "Winning hearts and minds," that catchphrase of counterinsurgency, can be easily misunderstood. The aim of Western soldiers in Afghanistan is not to win affection for themselves or their armies but to build support for the Afghan government...
...wound on his head and his naked torso bloodied by two injuries, certainly dealt a psychological blow to the Taliban, for whom Dadullah has emerged as a powerful propaganda rallying point. His persona was used to recruit new fighters by the Taliban, with leaflets distributed only last week in Zabul province urging former mujahedin who had fought the Soviets in the 1980s to rally behind him. After losing a leg as a young mujaheed in the anti-Soviet jihad, Dadullah rose through the ranks of the Taliban, becoming a member of its 10-man leadership council. His death, therefore, makes...
...Taliban's resurgence is Zabul is notable precisely because the region had once been touted as the Coalition's success story in the south. A U.S.-led provincial reconstruction project saw the construction of a new hospital, a woman's center, a job-training facility and a new bank equipped with an electronic system of money transfers that allowed government employees, such as police officers, to be paid on time. Taliban attacks were unheard of as one of the poorest provinces in the south seemed destined to offer an example for all of Afghanistan...
...Over the past month, however, those signs of success have begun to erode. Highway 1, the newly rebuilt road connecting Kabul to the southern financial capital of Kandahar, is the only paved road in Zabul, and until a little over a month ago, the eight-hour trip between the two cities had been considered a safe journey. No longer. Taliban checkpoints have been set up in several places, and trucks transporting goods to the provinces have been detained. Taliban fighters have even taken control of the district center of Argandab, not far from Maizan. In Maizan and other districts, Taliban...
...situation in Maizan reflects the reason NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer last week asked member states to send another 2,500 troops to take on the rising insurgency. McLaughlin would love to have more troops in Zabul, but he says the province is still not understaffed. "Is Zabul going to change a little because of Operation Medusa? Yes. But it makes sense to take a risk in Zabul in order to make our point in Kandahar." Lt. Col Daniel Petrescu, who heads Task Force Calugareni in Qalat, adds that "where Kandahar goes, goes Afghanistan. So by stabilizing Kandahar...