It may go relatively unnoticed in the general turmoil of the day but the resurrection of Taliban activity in Afghanistan does not bode well. The death of six US soldiers in a suicide blast near Kabul underscores the unraveling of a fragile peace (if one could even call the period after the close down of the NATO mission) and another specter of violence in the region.
Even if it is integral to the offensive being mounted by militants in the Helmand area currently this is the worst assault on foreign troops based in the country in recent times and has compelled American troop movement to shore up the loyalist forces. The frightening aspect is that with the militants well entrenched the bitterness of the conflict can only intensify exponentially and again put a war weary civilian population at risk again.
If you read between the lines it is a crisis situation that harkens back to the earlier years of conflict when the Taliban had taken over huge swathes of territory. Again, today the insurgents have taken command of nearly 90 percent of the Helmand district and cut off supplies to loyalist troops who are marooned in buildings without food and water.
Displacement of civilians has started again and it has to be acknowledged that unless there is some global action the government troops will be defending themselves with their backs to the wall in what seems to have been a post NATO departure collapse of resistance.
Washington would be allowing the ignition of a tinder box if it did not make some hard decisions swiftly. Sending in a handful of special forces is not going to deter the Taliban from picking up more territory at will and the towns of Babaji and Sangin are in imminent danger of falling to these advancing insurgents. If they manage to succeed it strengthens their garrisons and again increases the risk of isolating Kabul from the rest of the country and a major military offensive for which government forces have neither men nor equipment.
At a time when Saudi Arabia is making concerted efforts to end the conflict in Yemen and also show its readiness to hold talks with Iran on the situation in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, a conflagration in Afghanistan is the last thing anyone would want.
In Yemen the attitude of the Houthi leadership in breaking the cease-fire has been severely criticized and such recalcitrance whether here or in other war-torn regions may well speed up the formation of an Islamic alliance designed to fight insurgency and terrorism both militarily, intellectually and through media to get the message across that they mean business.
