"We should be careful that we don't overstate this militarily unconventional challenge," U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander, told reporters last week in Riga, Latvia, where the alliance's leaders were meeting. "We will not be defeated militarily by the Taliban." NATO has 32,000 troops in the country, backed by formidable airpower.
But the patchwork of militant groups battling the Western allies has its own arsenal of strengths.
Insurgent attacks, whose low-tech tactics echo those used against U.S. forces in Iraq, are often ineffectual. But inevitably, some hit home. On Wednesday, for example, two American civilian contractors were killed in a suicide bombing in Kandahar, the sixth such attack in 10 days. Nearly 180 NATO and allied troops have been killed in fighting this year in Afghanistan.
The number of casualties has been enough to ignite public debate over the Afghan mission in several NATO countries, including Canada, which has more than 2,000 troops deployed, mostly in the violent south, the traditional seat of Taliban power.
Within Afghanistan, civilians increasingly bear the brunt not only of insurgent attacks, but NATO's offensive against the militants. In October, a NATO airstrike in the south killed more than 30 civilians, most thought to be nomadic herders. Civilian deaths account for about one-quarter of the fatalities this year and heighten Afghans' resentment of the foreign military forces while feeding a gnawing sense of insecurity.
In terms of casualties, the conflict is a lopsided one. The number of insurgent fatalities over the last year could be as high as 7,000, according to some independent estimates. But the Taliban and its allies draw on what appears to be an almost inexhaustible supply of potential foot soldiers.
"Recruitment is not a problem for them -- not a problem at all," said Ayesha Siddiqa, an independent security analyst in Pakistan.
The allies are well aware that simply killing large numbers of insurgents will not constitute a victory. Western officials say they need to prevent the militants from seizing and holding more territory, establish reasonably secure conditions in the capital and the hinterlands, choke off infiltration across the porous Pakistani border and mend fences with restive tribal leaders.
All those tasks are proving difficult.
