Taliban to Intensify Insurgency, Says Pentagon

The deteriorating military situation in Afghanistan was underlined last night with the release of a Pentagon report which warned that the Taliban have regrouped and are poised to step up their attacks in the coming year.

The detailed study and a second report about the Afghan army and police made grim reading for US military planners, who are facing rising demands and casualties. The number of US deaths in Afghanistan stands at 527 since 2001.

The defence department report said that the Taliban had "coalesced into a resilient insurgency" and were potentially able to step up their bombing campaign this year.

The main area of increased activity was in the south of the country, though eastern Afghanistan had also deteriorated into a plethora of smaller insurgencies involving al-Qaida and Afghan warlords, the report said.

Coupled with this declining security situation, the second report described how hopes that the Afghan authorities would be able to take some pressure off US forces have not been realized. When the assessment was completed in March, only one army battalion and a headquarters unit were sufficiently well trained and organized to work independently of US personnel.

Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, acknowledged the scale of the problem in Afghanistan this week. He has pointed the finger of blame at the Pakistani government whose recent talks with tribal leaders on the border with Afghanistan had allowed insurgents to move more freely from their safe havens in Pakistan into the country.

The US commander of Nato forces in eastern Afghanistan said this week that insurgent attacks there rose by 40% this year.

There are currently 32,000 US troops in Afghanistan, 14,000 of whom are serving under the aegis of Nato. In addition to the American fatalities, some 310 from other coalition countries have died.

The reports said that the American military's difficulties in Afghanistan were compounded by other major problems, including the widespread illegal trade in opium, widespread corruption, and human rights abuses.