Pat Dollard | Young Americans

And notice how the tribal governor says the Taliban came to his town because we had recently pushed them out of the south, “they have no place to hide there”. The south is supposed to be the Taliban’s stronghold.

Matthew Fisher, National Post (Canada):

The predominately Push-toon province of Maidan-Wardak, which guards the southern approaches to Kabul, has a warrior tradition going back centuries. But it has been an oasis of calm the past few years, as the Taliban have been off fighting Afghan government forces and their American, Canadian, British and Dutch allies in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan.

All that suddenly changed at the beginning of the long, blazing Afghan summer. Decimated by heavy battlefield losses elsewhere, the Taliban arrived in Maidan-Wardak, which had no Afghan army or NATO military presence to speak of, and began blowing things up. As the province is only 35 kilometres from the capital, the Taliban instantly succeeded in shaking confidence in President Hamid Karzai’s government.

“We have problems with roadside IEDs. We have problems on the main highway at night,” said Jabar Naeemi, the youthful governor of this province, which is home to 800,000 Afghans and a road that connects to a dozen other provinces including Naeemi’s hometown, Kandahar City, where Canadian troops are based. “In the name of religion, terrorists and thieves have been working together looting and kidnapping women and exporting drugs and we must fight all of this at once.

“Some of the Taliban have left the South because they have no place to hide there. When they come here, they bring security problems with them that require a lot of attention. They are very well equipped and our police aren’t.”

Naeemi, who speaks English well and has visited Canada several times, made an urgent appeal for help when the Taliban showed up. But with the fledgling Afghan army and NATO combat troops badly extended, reinforcements did not arrive until a few weeks ago. The cavalry — in this case an Afghan army battalion and a company of paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 82 Airborne — has made an immediate difference. Insurgent attacks have dropped off.

“The Taliban will not win,” Naeemi said defiantly as he took a visitor on a driving tour of his area of jurisdiction, which is made up of wild, rustcoloured mountain ranges and equally arid plateaus.

“When they ruled this country they gave the people nothing. Women could not be educated. There was no order or development at all. There were no roads. This is why the people do not like them.”

One of the poorest of the country’s 34 provinces, it had only a couple of government buildings and virtually no electricity when Naeemi was appointed in March, 2005.

“I was not even aware of Wardak, it is so small and backwards,” said Naeemi, a 40-year-old husband and father of five with an immaculately groomed jet-black beard.

“When I got here, water had to be fetched from two kilometres away. There was no television, no radio and no facilities of any kind. There was no filing system, there were no plans. And I thought to myself that it would be very difficult to bring change here.”