Talking to the Taliban

摘要

The mood in Kabul has been a gloomy one of late, with little sign that nato forces are any closer to winning the war against the Taliban. On the front-line in Helmand there is equally little sign that the Taliban are winning the fight either. Instead there are signs that the organisation is adapting to broaden its popular appeal.rnThe British army, leading the nato effort in Helmand, has lost 115 soldiers there since 2006, compared with perhaps 5,000 dead Taliban. Yet Oari Yusuf Ahmadi, a senior Taliban spokesman, is relentlessly upbeat: "We struggle for almighty Allah and we are sure we are winning." The outgoing British commander, Brigadier Mark Carle-ton-Smith, credits the Taliban with being "still tactically quite resilient and certainly quite dangerous". But he says the British are "minimising the objective damage" they are able to inflict.