September 15, 2005:
There is growing evidence that the Taliban is experiencing
some internal rifts. This goes beyond the already considerable number of former
Taliban government, military, and even religious leaders who have accepted
amnesty from the Afghan government. There is apparently widespread
dissatisfaction with Mullah Omar's leadership (or lack of it), and that he is
even being criticized on religious grounds. Precisely how these tensions will
work out is unknown. Even if the dissidents succeed in supplanting Mullah Omar
it is unlikely that the Taliban's hostility to modernity will
change.
September 14, 2005: The Taliban terror campaign against Afghan
voters is underway. In southern Afghanistan, Taliban stopped a group of
civilians, found voting cards on seven of them, and killed them for it. The
Taliban consider democracy un-Islamic, and will kill anyone who disagrees with
them.
September 11, 2005: Operations against the Taliban, and the
growth of the Afghan army and national police, have led the U.S. to plan a
twenty percent cut in their Afghan forces early next year. That would be a
brigade (about 4,000 troops.) There's been a lot more combat for U.S. troops
this year, more than at any time since 2001. As a result, casualties were
higher: 63 dead so far, less than two per week. This is less than a third the
casualty rate suffered by troops operating under similar conditions in Vietnam
forty years ago. The difference is better training, equipment and leadership.
September 10, 2005: Police found the bodies of five men kidnapped
earlier by Taliban raiders. The dead included a candidate for parliament, a
district official and three others. Elsewhere in southern Afghanistan, American
and Afghan troops killed at least 30 Taliban, and arrested 60 others. Large
quantities of weapons and ammunition were captured, along with documents and
communications gear.
September 9, 2005: A convoy, containing the
defense minister, was fired on as it entered the airport outside Kabul. It was
first believed that this was an assassination attempt. But further investigation
it turned out that the convoy drove into a gun battle between two groups of
soldiers, one of which thought the others were imposters (al Qaeda or Taliban
trying to get into the airport for an attack).
