As the Obama White House takes the reins from the Bush administration, the situation in Afghanistan has gone from bad to worse. Formerly the stronghold of the Taliban regime, and a staging ground for the al Qaeda terrorist network, Afghanistan has seen a resurgence of violence recently.
During his presidential campaign, President Barrack Obama repeatedly stated that he would shift the focus of the loosely defined "War on Terror" from Bush's Iraq, to the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, if necessary. Current strategies being discussed include the shifting of tens of thousands of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. To gauge the situation, Obama has appointed a new envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, who took a brief tour of Pakistan and the semi autonomous tribal regions on the Afghan-Pakistan border before settling in Kabul.
After his brief tour of the region, Richard Holbrooke urged that Afghanistan will be much tougher than Iraq. The Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, including Osama bin Laden, have fled to the mountains in the tribal borderland between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where there is little government control and ample places to hide out, resupply, and retrain. After spending many years regrouping, these fighters have become more bold and frequent in their attacks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7886664.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7877505.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7854797.stm
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