Civilian and military personnel take shelter during a Taliban assault on Kandahar Air Field on Saturday.
Deadly, brazen attacks in Kabul and Kandahar - including a salvo of short-range missiles that slammed into the centre of the airfield base housing thousands of Canadian and U.S. troops - underpin a tenacious Taliban willingness to battle for Afghan hearts and minds even as President Barack Obama escalates the war with tens of thousands of reinforcements.
This weekend's twin-pronged attack on Kandahar Air Field involved half a dozen small, Soviet-era missiles blasting the sprawling base, including one that wounded a dozen near Tim Hortons, which overlooks an outdoor hockey rink where off-duty soldiers socialize. Meanwhile, insurgents opened fire on the heavily defended north gate. A second attack from the south was thwarted by helicopter gunships.
Various reports said several Canadians were among the wounded and two helicopters were badly damaged by another of the rockets that slammed into the base after dark. A U.S. officer, quoted by Associated Press, confirmed the missile strike near the coffee shop and a reporter inside the base saw bloodstains on the shop-lined boardwalk beside the rink.
After the first rocket hit, sirens wailed and thousands of soldiers huddled in shelters while a crack British infantry unit fought off the attackers, but it was hours before the huge base returned to normalcy.
"Around the boardwalk retail area, several people were caught up in the blast," an airman reported on an official British military media site. There were "13 people from the American and Canadian contingents suffering injuries; although no fatalities,'' it added. A Canadian military spokeswoman declined to confirm the number or nationalities of the casualties.
The attack, militarily inconsequential in terms of the overall war, nevertheless demonstrates a Taliban resolve and capacity to attack foreign troops even inside heavily fortified bases - just as Afghan insurgents did a generation ago as they eventually drove out more than 100,000 Soviet soldiers.
The Taliban attacks are meant to show Afghans, who know from bitter experience that Western vows of enduring support can quickly vaporize, the risks of siding with a shaky and corrupt regime in Kabul propped up by foreign troops.
Last week, the Taliban attacked a convoy of armoured and unmarked vehicles in downtown Kabul - killing 18, among them four senior NATO officers, including a Canadian colonel. Barely 24 hours later, scores of Taliban fighters stormed the perimeter of Bagram air base, the biggest U.S. base in Afghanistan where the notorious detainee prison is located.
Coupled with the Kandahar attacks, the Taliban has boldly struck three times in less than a week, even as it readies to counter Mr. Obama's surge that will result in more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines joining 30,000 NATO troops, including 2,500 Canadians already battling the Taliban.
But after months of promising a major offensive in Kandahar, Mr. Obama's personally picked Afghan commander is now downsizing expectations.
"We're not using the term operation or major operations because that often brings to mind in people's psyche the idea of a D-Day and an H-hour and an attack,'' General Stanley McChrystal said last week.
So, the long-promised U.S.-led offensive to clear the Taliban from their heartland province of Kandahar has been postponed while generals absorb the sobering lessons from a similar effort in neighbouring Helmand. There the Taliban quickly returned and the Karzai government has been exposed as incapable of providing either security or services even after a bloody U.S. Marines offensive cleared the Marja area of insurgents earlier this spring.
Also delayed is a so-called loya jirga - a grand assembly of notables and elders - called by President Hamid Karzai and intended as a peace overture to the Taliban. The twice-delayed gathering has now vaguely been set for some time in June. Senior Taliban leaders won't attend and weren't invited, but Afghans with ties to the Taliban - which ruled Afghanistan until driven out by a U.S.-led attack after the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings that toppled New York's twin towers and damaged the Pentagon - are expected.
After nearly nine years of fighting a low-intensity counterinsurgency against Islamic military and four years after Canadian troops were deployed to the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, it has become starkly evident the Taliban are capable of waging a raging insurgency across the south and staging attacks anywhere in the country.
Mr. Obama, who made the Afghan conflict his war even as he denounced the conflict in Iraq, has ordered more than 70,000 U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan since reaching the Oval Office.
"We face a tough fight in Afghanistan," the President admitted Saturday in a speech to graduates at the West Point academy. He accused the Taliban of assassination and indiscriminate killing and intimidation.
However, many Afghans and Pakistanis regard U.S. air strikes and drone attacks from missile-firing unmanned aircraft as unwarranted assassinations and are enraged by civilian casualties, from both bombings and during firefights involving foreign troops.
"We toppled the Taliban regime," Mr. Obama said, telling the newly graduated officers, most of whom will be headed for Afghanistan, "now we must break the momentum of a Taliban insurgency …''
But the President faces not just a resurgent Taliban but also faltering allies.
In Canada, the Harper government has ordered the pullout of all combat troops - the first time a Canadian government has ever left a war before it was over - by next summer.
Britain's new Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has assailed allies setting quit dates. During a visit to Afghanistan this weekend - he had to omit a scheduled stop at Kandahar Air Field because of the Taliban attacks - he said: ``I don't think setting a deadline helps anybody.''
In Afghanistan, there's an often-quoted and perhaps apocryphal Taliban adage that "NATO has all the watches, but we have all the time," a derisory reference to the lack of staying power of foreign forces despite their high-tech weaponry.
The Dutch government collapsed earlier this year when it attempted to meet a NATO request that it keep its 2,000 combat troops fighting in Afghanistan beyond the original deadline.
In Germany, public opposition to the Afghan commitment is mounting, especially now that German troops are beginning to take casualties even in the formerly quiet northern sector. The government has set no quit date but wants to begin withdrawals next year.