WASHINGTON - After nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan, the Taliban-led insurgency is flourishing, the Defense Department indicated in a gloomy new report yesterday, saying the insurgents are likely to accelerate their attacks and expand into new regions in northern and western regions of the country.
Afghanistan's opium harvest reached a record high in 2007, and that the area under poppy cultivation actually increased 17 percent despite efforts to eradicate the crop.
Yesterday's Pentagon report acknowledged that the concerted counter-narcotics campaign there has "not been successful."
Training and equipping Afghan's security forces have been hampered by corruption, a shortage of U.S. and other international trainers, and by what the report said was "a lack of unity of effort within the international community."
Since 2001, the United States has spent about $23 billion in Afghanistan, most of it in training and equipping Afghan security forces. Total international assistance has reached $30 billion, but U.S. officials and non-governmental reports have said much of that aid has been wasted and poorly coordinated.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.afghan28jun28,0,200136.story
