PESHAWAR, June 10: If the one-legged Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah is to be believed his 2,000 rag-tag fighters are ready to take on the nearly half their number belonging to one of the world’s most well-oiled fighting machines - the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organisation- who are ready to take over from their American counterparts in Afghanistan.

The battle lines have already been drawn. The Taliban Supremo, Mullah Mohammad Omar, promised in March this year to turn “the Afghan soil red for the crusaders and their puppets; and the occupiers will face an unpredictable wave of Afghan resistance.”

Indeed, this summer has turned out to be exceedingly hot. It has seen violence taking the bloodiest turn since the overthrow of the Taliban in March, 2001, taking a heavy toll of over 8,000 people including civilians, insurgents and 39 foreign soldiers.

And indeed the resurgence of the Taliban, who had melted into the countryside soon after their overthrow, has surprised many a commentator and analyst. The insurgency in Afghanistan is getting bloody and deadly. Suicide attacks, ambushes, roadside bombs and sometimes brazen attacks on district headquarters in the seemingly lawless south and east of the country have almost become a daily norm.

Clearly, the fight in Afghanistan’s countryside has entered a new phase. The war against the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies has moved from high-tech to low-tech, where the rules of engagement are determined by the black-turbaned militants rather than their foreign adversaries.

A raft of suicide and roadside bombings has given a new dimension to what hitherto had been a low-intensity insurgency. Except for this tactical change that bears the hallmark of the Al Qaeda-led fight in Iraq, the Taliban fight in Afghanistan is pretty much being fought in the same old style of the anti-Soviet “jihad” - wherein the US and its allies are restricted to the control of cities.

The only difference, however, is that the insurgency this time round is largely restricted to seven provinces, all straddling Pakistan’s north-western frontiers. And this explains why Pakistan gets the blame for the heightened level of Taliban insurgency along its borders.

There are several factors for the resurgence of the Taliban. One, the Taliban have had ample time since their overthrow six years ago to regroup, reorganise and re-establish themselves. Every year they have got stronger and every spring they start with a renewed vigour.

Over the years, the Taliban have also been able to improve on their tactics and strategy on how to deal with an adversary that is high-tech and has air-power. Al Qaeda’s experience in Iraq has proven handy and lethal. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of casualties among the foreign troops and the Afghan National Army. But in a striking similarity with Iraq, it is the Afghan National Police which bore the brunt of the Taliban insurgency.

It also shows that the Taliban are now better financed and better-trained. There is evidence to suggest that Taliban’s chief patron, Al Qaeda, continues to get a major part its funding from private donors in the Gulf and the Middle East. But reports also say that a proportion of that funding comes from private Pakistani and Afghan sources.

The reinvigorated insurgency may also be linked to the Taliban’s strategy of unsettling the 9,000-strong Nato-led International Security Assistance Force even before their full deployment in the strife-torn south.

There is an argument that the Americans repeated the mistake in Iraq they made in Afghanistan – not securing potential trouble spots. They should have been aware that the stretch from the south to the east of Afghanistan had been a Taliban stronghold and could re-emerge as a sanctuary.

To top it all, the US moved its assets to Iraq just when they needed them the most in Afghanistan, with the result that the insurgency has not only created a sense of insecurity among the people, who now willy-nilly, look up to the Taliban, but has also thwarted attempts to carry out economic reconstruction.

It is also said that the Taliban owe their resurgence to the lack of government presence and writ in the areas they operate in. The Afghan National Police is under-equipped and poorly paid. Besides, their presence is thin in most parts of the country. (So far, 55,000 police officers have been trained, a figure that is likely to reach the 62,000 mark by December, 2008, under a US-funded police training programme.) More than anything else, this has emboldened the Taliban and given them the freedom to operate and hit targets at will.

On the other hand, the Afghan National Army (ANA) remains a small force with a total strength of 27,000, though it is expected to go up to 70,000 in the next two years. But for operational and financial purposes, it continues to rely on the US and coalition forces. To its credit, the ANA has shown its fighting spirit in recent battles against the Taliban but to be able to move and win over local support and credibility, it would have to be on its own. Till then the Taliban appear more than happy to fill the void.

The prevailing security situation in the south of the country has, therefore, pre-empted efforts to carry out development and reconstruction in one of the most backward areas of the country. One report said that more than 200 schools were shut down in southern Afghanistan last year, where aid agencies have almost ceased their activities for fear of attacks. So, unless the security situation improves, there appears little hope of development ever reaching what is fast turning into a heartland of resistance against the US and allied forces.

It would, however, be wrong to assume that the Taliban resurgence in the Pakhtun belt is due to a sense of alienation there from the seat of power – Kabul. It is a fact that Pakhtuns now are fairly well represented – both within the government and in parliament. The Taliban fight may have some nationalist connotations but it is an ideological war, a ‘Jihad against the infidels and their puppets.’

The Pakistan Factor: Hardly a day goes by without Kabul urging Islamabad to do more to help overcome the insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Their anxiety is understandable and not entirely misplaced, say analysts.

Much of what is happening along Afghanistan’s border area with Pakistan is seen as a result of militants’ crossing over from this side of the border. That the bulk of the roughly 80,000 troops guarding Pakistan’s frontiers with Afghanistan are based in Waziristan is in itself an acknowledgement of this.

This, by the way, is not a new phenonomenon. Afghan mujahideen and their Pakistani and foreign comrades-in-arms used to use Wazisiristan as the launching pad, and had bases there, to make frequent forays into Afghanistan to target Soviet and Afghan forces.

Nothing much has changed since then, except for the cast of characters. The Americans have replaced the Soviets and for the militants, waging a holy war, President Karzai’s government is a puppet regime installed by an occupation force. In some parts of Waziristan, the militants are still described as mujahideen. Recruitment for the ‘jihad’ in Afghanistan continues unabated and suicide bombers are indoctrinated and sent across to fulfil their mission of achieving martyrdom.

Pakistan’s critics blame it for what is happening in Afghanistan by pointing to the quantum of activity within close proximity of the border. They say Islamabad has to fulfil its international obligations by curtailing the movement of people from its side of the border and cannot absolve itself by asking Kabul to tighten control on the other side. “The issue is not just placing 80,000 troops on the border but the whole point is how effective that force has been in accomplishing its mission objective,” says one analyst.

But far from achieving its goals of curbing cross-border infiltration, the military in Waziristan appears to have been bogged down by an insurgency probably more lethal and dangerous than the one in Afghanistan itself. Pakistani security forces have lost more men, nearly three times more, between January 2003 and April 2006, than the US has since 2001.

Ambushes and roadside bombs and IED (improvised explosive device) attacks against security forces in Waziristan are as frequent as they are across the border. Militants, desperately trying to save their last sanctuary, have turned their guns on the Pakistani forces, pro-government tribal elders and intelligence operatives. This whole swathe of Waziristan, Paktia and Paktika on both sides of the border is being likened to a powder keg. The situation calls for an out-of-the-box approach.

“Side by side with a strategy of engaging the locals and protecting loyalists from the wrath of the Taliban, ways and means have to be found to monitor and patrol the borders more effectively. Coordinated efforts involving the tripartite commission - Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nato - need to be made to improve the mechanism for better and timely intelligence sharing and, more importantly, security. No infrastructure can be created for economic development without security. Pakistan attempted to do this in Waziristan and failed,” a Peshawar-based security expert said.