Taliban Threat is Said to Grow in Afghan South

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From Carlotta Gall, The New York Times:

“The security situation is not good,” Governor Munib told General Eikenberry and a group of cabinet ministers at a meeting with tribal elders. “The number of Taliban and enemy is several times more than that of the police and Afghan National Army in this province,” he said.

Uruzgan is not the only province teetering out of control. Helmand and Kandahar to the south have been increasingly overrun by militants this year, as large groups of Taliban are reportedly moving through the countryside, intimidating villagers, ambushing vehicles, and spoiling for a fight with coalition or Afghan forces.

Insurgents also have the run of parts of Zabul, Ghazni and Paktika Provinces to the southeast, and have increased ambushes on the main Kabul-Kandahar highway.

The Bush administration is alarmed, according to a Western intelligence official close to the administration. He said that while senior members of the administration consider the situation in Iraq to be not as bad as portrayed in the press, in Afghanistan the situation is worse than it has been generally portrayed.

Here.