WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON - After nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan, the Taliban-led insurgency is flourishing, the Defense Department indicated in a gloomy new report yesterday, saying the insurgents are likely to accelerate their attacks and expand into new regions in northern and western regions of the country.
The Pentagon's assessment came as U.S. casualties in Afghanistan rose to 23 in June, the second-deadliest month for American forces since the U.S. invaded weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Attacks using improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs, rose 35 percent last year, reaching 2,616 attacks, according to the report, which provided no other measures of violence or data from previous years.
The report echoed previous grim assessments by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and others, including retired four-star Marine Gen. James Jones, about the lack of progress in the U.S.-led war and Afghanistan's deep-rooted problems of violence, extremism, corruption and narcotics.
The United Nations reported this week, for example, that Afghanistan's opium harvest reached a record high in 2007, and that the area under poppy cultivation actually increased 17 percent despite efforts to eradicate the crop.
Yesterday's Pentagon report acknowledged that the concerted counter-narcotics campaign there has "not been successful."
Training and equipping Afghan's security forces have been hampered by corruption, a shortage of U.S. and other international trainers, and by what the report said was "a lack of unity of effort within the international community."
"Police corruption and misconduct remain a problem," the Pentagon said in its first semiannual report about progress in Afghanistan, mandated by Congress last year.
Gates, among other U.S. officials, has been highly critical of the failure by major European allies to provide trainers and other support for Afghanistan's struggling army and police.
The United States has about 33,000 U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan, while about 40 other countries have contributed a total of 29,150. France is sending an additional 700 troops this summer, and Germany has said it may send another 1,000 troops in the fall.
At a European security conference earlier this month, Gates acknowledged that he has been "a big nag" on Europe's reluctance to send enough forces to Afghanistan. "But for NATO to continue to be tied up in politics ... that are irrelevant to whether we are making progress in Afghanistan, I just don't have patience any more," Gates said.
