New Delhi/Kabul - When the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) deployed in Afghanistan in early 2002, some 850 German troops were in its ranks. That number has increased more than fourfold. Confined at first to Kabul, the Germans' mission was widened to the northern part of the country, where they took command in 2006. Last year Germany sent Tornado jets to the NATO-led ISAF. A few days ago the German Defence Ministry announced it was raising the ceiling on its troop deployments in Afghanistan from 3,500 to 4,500. And the next escalation is due on Monday as Germany takes over the Quick Reaction Force in the north.
Not only Germany's involvement in Afghanistan has expanded greatly, but also that of the ISAF as a whole. With just 5,000 personnel in the beginning, the ISAF today comprises more than 52,000 men and women from 40 countries. Another 13,000 troops in Afghanistan belong to the US-led coalition.
The ISAF, whose initial United Nations mandate called for securing the capital Kabul and surrounding areas, has been deployed countrywide since October 2006. Though its role was once peacekeeping, the ISAF has become a combat force, suffering many dead and wounded. But victory in Afghanistan remains elusive despite the steady increase in commitment, both military and civilian, by the international community.
It is true when NATO officials say that the Taliban, having taken heavy casualties, largely try to avoid fighting head-on the superior forces arrayed against them. This does not mean that the country has become more secure, however; quite the contrary. There were some 160 suicide bombings last year, compared with just two in 2003, the first year of suicide attacks following the overthrow of the Taliban regime.
The suicide attacks continue. And the Taliban also use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to deadly effect. The number of IED attacks rose in the first quarter of 2008 by about a third, to more than 430, against the same period a year earlier. About 8,000 people died a violent death in Afghanistan last year, more than double the number in 2006.
Western diplomats and military officers in Kabul point out that numerous Taliban commanders have been killed. Nevertheless, so far this year the Islamist militants have managed to pull off three spectacular, unprecedented attacks requiring a great deal of planning and coordination.
In January, the Taliban stormed the country's only luxury hotel, the Serena in Kabul, one of whose guests at the time was Norway's foreign minister. In April, Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped assassination when the Taliban attacked a military parade in the capital that he and foreign diplomats were viewing.
And in mid-June, the Taliban staged a commando raid on a prison in the city of Kandahar, freeing nearly 900 inmates, including almost 400 of their own militants.
Afterwards, hundreds of militants overran villages in Arghandab district, about 20 kilometres north of Kandahar. The ISAF felt compelled to assure repeatedly that the city, Afghanistan's second- largest and the biggest in the embattled south, remained firmly in government control.
An offensive by Afghan and NATO forces that the latter called a "clean-up operation" succeeded in driving the Taliban out of Arghandab.
Despite the declaration by US President George W Bush in 2004 that Afghanistan had seen "the first victory in the war on terror," the Taliban today - six and a half years after their regime was toppled - are far from beaten.
Their terror is stirring up serious trouble not only in Afghanistan, but in neighbouring Pakistan as well. The Taliban continue to spread in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Journalists there are already speculating about the previously unthinkable: that Peshawar, the provincial capital, could fall to the militants.
The Taliban are attacking NATO troops in Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan, where their growing strength could create additional problems for ISAF: The main overland supply route for ISAF, and hence for German troops in Afghanistan, runs through the North-West Frontier Province.
