Afghanistan war nears `tipping point'

"People have lived through 20-odd years of war at varying levels of intensity. Frankly, they're not going to get fazed ... by a few IEDs," or improvised explosive devices, he said. "But they are concerned that the base level of their lives is not improved, and that's the challenge that the insurgency provides -- delaying the ability of the government to be able to deliver, by keeping certain areas unstable."

Senior NATO generals have publicly aired disagreements over battle tactics, troop strength and rules that largely exempt some member countries' troops from the most dangerous duty. But the alliance's political leadership appears in agreement that the Afghanistan fight is one the West cannot afford to lose. British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared in advance of the Riga meeting that "NATO's credibility is at stake," and President Bush called Afghanistan "NATO's most important military operation."

In recent weeks, senior U.S. officials have spoken more frankly about the alliance's attempts to come to terms with an unexpectedly resilient foe.

"There's certainly concern ... about the fact that they've been able to come out this year with more intensity, more organization than we might have expected," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher recently told reporters in New Delhi.

"You do have to understand, there are people that are bound and determined to kill us," he said.

"For those people, we're going to have to shoot back."

king@latimes.com

david.holley@latimes.com

King reported from Kabul and Holley from Riga. Times staff writers Henry Chu in New Delhi and Sergei L. Loiko in Moscow contributed to this report.