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The Guardian reports for a Second consequtive day, the Pakistan-based Taliban destroy supplies bound for NATO in Afghanistan. Approximately 50 shipping containers of supplies were destoyed in the assult. “The militants struck a container terminal on the outskirts of Peshawar, in north-west Pakistan, just over a mile from yesterday’s attack, in which gunmen torched more than 100 trucks.”
According to Mohammad Zaman, a security guard at the terminal on the Peshawar ring road, “The militants came just past midnight, firing in the air, sprinkled petrol on containers and then set them on fire… They told us they would not harm us, but they asked us not to work for the Americans.”
Yesterday’s attack was the largest yet by the Taliban. The NY Times reports the Attacks expose the vulnerability of the route from the port of Karachi through Peshawar. “The United States relies on the route for an overwhelming proportion of its supplies for the war in Afghanistan.” 80 percent of U.S. matériel for the occupation of Afghanistan goes through Pakistan.
The AP reports Taliban vows violent response to US troop increase. “The current armed clashes, which now number into tens, will spiral up to hundred of armed clashes. Your current casualties of hundreds will jack up to thousand casualties of dead and injured,” read a statement posted on a Web site attributed to Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban.
“The Taliban has a permanent presence in 72% of the territory of Afghanistan, up from 54% last year, and is expanding its control beyond the rural south of the country, the International Council on Security and Development, formerly the Senlis Council, says in a report today”, reported by The Guardian.
An analysis, “Afghan Strategy Poses Stiff Challenge for Obama“, by the NY Times, surmised the occupation is pretty much another Bush failure.
After seven years of war, Afghanistan presents a unique set of problems: a rural-based insurgency, an enemy sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan, the chronic weakness of the Afghan government, a thriving narcotics trade, poorly developed infrastructure, and forbidding terrain.
I believe the United States should never have invaded Afghanistan. What do we have to show for seven years of war and occupation?
Four at Four continues with Bush’s lasting impact on federal courts, Blackwater mercenaries charged with voluntary manslaughter, and another sign of the decline of the American Empire.