'Afghanistan Update: July 2008', Center for Defense Information, 7 August 2008

EXCERPT: "Afghanistan has remained chaotic and been the focus of a renewed international effort to spotlight the challenges facing the country. The Taliban, along with insurgents, have been stepping up operations against power stations, bridges and other large-scale targets. Humanitarian convoys and workers have increasingly been a target of insurgents. In one instance a U.N. World Food Programme convoy was hit, denying meals for some 300,000 Afghan schoolchildren in the southern provinces. The head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, and several of his lieutenants reportedly met with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. While U.S. intelligence described rumors that al-Qaida is funneling resources from Iraq to a more hospitable environment in Afghanistan as unsubstantiated, some military commanders took a different view. Brig. Gen. Brian Keller, the senior intelligence chief for Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Forces in Iraq stated, 'We do believe al-Qaida is doing some measure of reassessment regarding the continued viability of its fight in Iraq and whether Iraq should remain the focus of its efforts.' The reports came in tandem with information that a powerful Taliban leader, Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani, may openly fight Mullah Omar for leadership of the group. Haqqani has openly ridiculed Omar in the past."

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