Afghanistan would be likely to experience more violence in 2009 as the U.S.-led military alliance has failed to wipe out the factors of instability above all the die-hard Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents.
Continued Taliban-led insurgency, extremism, tribalism along with high rate of unemployment and poverty as the destabilizing factors have been contributing to insecurity in the misfortune and conflict-ridden central Asian state.
Afghan and the U.S.-led alliance officials foresee more violence in 2009 that Taliban and associate insurgents have trenched the area of activities from their traditional bases in south and east to the peaceful north and northeastern provinces of the country.
Afghanistan Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi in talks with journalists on Jan. 14 frankly said, "We predict 2009 would be a tough year in term of conflict. We do not expect to have less violence this year than 2008."
However, he was optimistic that the security forces would have more achievements and more successes against Taliban-led insurgents with the reinforcement of 30,000-strong U.S. troops in the current year.
"We would be in a better position in 2009 as the strength of Afghanistan National Army (ANA) would increase from 80,000 in 2008 to over 100,000 this year and the alliance would also send additional troops," Azimi added.
Nevertheless, over 5,000 people with some 2,000 of them civilians had been killed, mostly in erroneous air strikes of the Coalition forces and Taliban-related violence, in 2008.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman described protection of non- combatants during military operations against insurgents a daunting challenge.
"Our main challenge in 2009 is differentiation of militants from civilians during operations as the militants often use civilians as human shield and if we pound them civilians would be harmed and in this case Afghan and international troops would be defamed, otherwise they would create security problems," Azimi noted.
Carrying out suicide attacks and roadside bombings which largely claim civilian lives, Azimi added, is another challenge lying ahead of Afghan troops.
"Protecting the lives and properties of citizens is the responsibility of the government, so it is a tough challenge for the government to check deadly suicide bombings and protect the lives of non-combatants," Azimi noted.
Taliban tough resistance and resorting to suicide attacks and roadside bombings in 2008 had forced the U.S. and allied nations to send more troops to the post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Taliban elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar whose regime was driven out of power by the U.S.-led military coalition in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden vowed in late 2008 that he would continue to fight till the withdrawal of foreign troops from his country.
This is a strong message that facilitates the radical outfit to recruit new fighters from among uneducated Afghans from backward rural areas.
He also in reaction to the outcome of U.S. presidential elections called on the U.S. new administration to pull out forces from Afghanistan, a demand rejected by both Kabul and Washington.
Commenting on the challenges in 2009, spokesman of the NATO-led ISAF forces in Afghanistan Brigadier General Richard Blanchette described security as the main one.
"The Taliban and other insurgents continue to resort on IEDs ( Improvised Explosive Devices) and harm civilians," the spokesman said at a press conference here last week.
Describing the tactic as "awful", the General added that the international troops would continue to mount pressure on insurgents throughout the year.
However, he said "there is certainly a window we have to create and it is our job. This is a window of security that has to be created."
Meantime, Blanchette linked achieving the goal of stabilizing situation to bolstering security forces in the militancy-plagued country.
"But the real challenge is to ensure that we are able to hold this window of security as long as possible and we all know that we do not have enough Afghan national security forces right now to do this and we do not have enough ISAF forces either to do this. Therefore we need to have more troops," he maintained.
To ensure security, the General further linked it with accelerating reconstruction process, development and good governance with coordinated support of international community. " The challenge is really to coordinate all these because it involves many people, it involves different organizations including the international community and this is not an easy task, " he said.
"Of course to ensure that there is reconstruction and development that can take place in this area through an improve governance as soon as the security window or window of security is established," he stressed.
Moreover, a top US intelligence official Michael McConnell who is the director of National Intelligence stressed recently that making governance in Afghanistan is a huge challenge.
"Making (Afghanistan) a viable, productive society that has security, appropriate governance by rule of law and economic opportunities is a huge challenge."
The intelligence figure, according to media reports, described Afghanistan a "tribal" society, saying that it has never been governed from the outside for any length of time.
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama who took office from his predecessor George W Bush on Tuesdays promised last month to end the war in Iraq and refocus efforts on Afghanistan, where increasing violence and Taliban-linked insurgency have claimed among others more than 1,100 lives of foreign soldiers in the past seven years.
"Boosting troops is not the solution. If the U.S. wants to win the war in Afghanistan it has to change the strategy and parallel to military operations has to accelerate the reconstruction process and bring change to the living standard of Afghans, otherwise the instability would continue for the years to come," an Afghan observer Qasim Akhgar said.
(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2009)