Alexander Szandar and Susanne Koelbl, 'Germany Faces Taliban Pincer in Afghanistan', Spiegel Online, 17 December 2007

EXCERPT: "[T]he Taliban is upping the pressure on northern Afghanistan. The group's Islamist holy warriors have begun to march northward and are already practically at the Bundeswehr's doorstep. Western intelligence agents have noticed that the Taliban is advancing in two directions in a pincer movement. Some Taliban groups are moving north from Helmand Province, Afghanistan's center of opium poppy cultivation, toward the capital Kabul. Other Taliban units are moving away from Helmand and Kandahar and sweeping up westwards through provinces like Herat and Badghis, and toward Kunduz, where the Bundeswehr maintains a reconstruction team of 400 troops. The Germans, as it turns out, are being wedged in on both sides."

"The intelligence agencies believe that the Taliban plans to recapture its old base at Kunduz, using tactics that would presumably resemble its strategy in the south. It promises poor farmers money and protection for their poppy fields, the local population with brutal attacks on supposed ISAF collaborators and attempts to weaken the NATO forces with attacks and force them to retreat to their fortified military bases."

To continue reading this article, click here.

Related posts:
'Insurgency Spreads to Western Provinces', 10 December 2007
'The German Mission to Afghanistan', 5 November 2007
'Germany Extends Afghanistan Mission for 1 Year', 17 October 2007