Afghanistan mission close to failing

Declan Walsh and Richard Norton Taylor
The Guardian
February 29 2008

Hamid Karzai controls about 30% of Afghanistan and the Taliban 10%, and the remainder is under tribal control.

After six years of US-led military support and billions of pounds in aid, security in Afghanistan is “deteriorating” and President Hamid Karzai’s government controls less than a third of the country, America’s top intelligence official has admitted.

Mike McConnell testified in Washington that Karzai controls about 30% of Afghanistan and the Taliban 10%, and the remainder is under tribal control.

The Afghan government angrily denied the US director of national intelligence’s assessment yesterday, insisting it controlled “over 360″ of the country’s 365 districts. “This is far from the facts and we completely deny it,” said the defence ministry.

But the gloomy comments echoed even more strongly worded recent reports by thinktanks, including one headed by the former Nato commander General James Jones, which concluded that “urgent changes” were required now to “prevent Afghanistan becoming a failed state”.

Although Nato forces have killed thousands of insurgents, including several commanders, an unrelenting drip of violence has eroded Karzai’s grip in the provinces, providing fuel to critics who deride him as “the mayor of Kabul”.

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