Others have already reached the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, crossing Iran and Turkish borders to reach their new fighting ground and to assist the Taliban in its long and enduring war against the Nato. A majority of the Iraq fighters composed of several nationalities have now reached Pakistan. They are the direct cause of the rise in the Taliban in Afghanistan and they brought with them new techniques and weapons that can cause heavy damages to the Nato and US forces operating in Afghanistan.

They are also targeting British forces while they spread across the Afghan flatland to reach the Taliban and consolidate its ranks. These are experienced fighters, many of whom stood in defiance of the super powerful US in Iraq.

“The swelling forces of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan’s border region pose a grave threat to American and NATO troops in Afghanistan,” wrote an editorialist in the New York Times. He pressed the alarm bell because he noted that the US was not in a position to send its forces to attack the Northern Pakistani Tribal regions due to the sensitivity of the issue as it might cause a massive anti-US explosion across Pakistan.

In the mean time, the US announced that it had killed more than a thousand Taliban fighters during the recent fights in Afghanistan and it hailed Pakistan for pushing several groups of Taliban and Mujahideen fighters from the Pakistani border deep into Afghanistan. These victories are however short lived as the Taliban is putting more and more pressure on the Nato in Afghanistan.

The US is telling Pakistan that it has to get its elite units which are specifically trained in counterinsurgency techniques to fight the Mujahideen forces North West Pakistan and along the border with Afghanistan. The New York Times even suggested that Pakistan’s new military commander Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kavani will have to commit to fighting the Taliban for the sake of his own country’s stability.

It is also question of buying the loyalty of the tribal regions with additional US aid to the Pakistani government, aid which stood at $7 billion in military assistance over the past six years and which would be increased to $15 billion by the Senate this year, over the next ten years.

This will include aiding the tribal regions with education and infrastructure aid in a bid to get the tribal leaders to stop supporting and hiding the Mujahideen fighters that are kicking the Nato soldiers in Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, the rise of the Taliban is not surprising since it has an unlimited supply of soldiers on foot and has upgraded its military arsenal with assistance from Iran – so says US reports.

Attempts at dividing the Taliban and splitting it away from the Osama bin Laden inspired groups failed in the past two years. A latest attempt by the Kabul government to rope the Taliban in and to form a coalition government with Hamid Karzai failed. The Taliban said Karzai must go or he must be eliminated since they would not want to work with a US puppet.

The Nato and the US was left with only one choice, increase their army load in Afghanistan and bring the fight to the Taliban. This was done after many divisions within the Nato in 2007 with several member states refusing to send additional troops to assist the British and the US forces.

The question now is whether the Taliban and its OBL inspired Mujahideen fighters are able to stop the Nato from winning the war in Afghanistan or will the Nato press on and clinch a victory in the end, a victory that will clearly mean the official disappearance of the Taliban?

In the year 2001, the US said the Taliban had only 5000 core members but in 2003 the figure rose to 12000 and today it must be more than that. It will be difficult for the Nato to win a war in which the opposing forces are constantly growing in numbers. For the Taliban, the daily attacks on the Nato forces and the target killing of its soldiers is a feat that reminds them of the Mujahideen fighters that defeated the Soviet Union.

The Taliban is rising and the US will have to decide how to put an end to the carnage it is carrying out under the Nato against Afghan civilians who seem to be in favor of the Taliban.

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