DAR AL ISLAM-AFGHANISTAN: JIHAD IS GOING TO HEAT UP

US general: Higher levels of fighting expected
AP

Camp Sharona: The outgoing US commander in Afghanistan said he expects higher levels of fighting in the coming year, and that Taliban militants will try to briefly overrun district centres to unhinge Afghans' morale.

Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry also said the recent killing of a high-level Taliban commander shows that fugitives like Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar will one day slip up, and that the US will strike.

Eikenberry, expected to be out of Afghanistan in late January, said he expects militants early in 2007 to attack border security posts, to extend their use of suicide bombs and to launch assault on district centres in groups of 25 to 100 fighters.

But Eikenberry said none of the Taliban;s efforts would provide "a significant military challenge" for US, Nato and Afghan forces, which he said have improved greatly in the past year.

"The capability exists for that array of allied and Afghan forces to dominate militarily wherever they move to," he said.

Eikenberry said that as he looks ahead to the first half of the coming year, "I anticipate higher levels of fighting". When asked if that was in comparison to 2006, he said: "We should not be surprised by levels of fighting in parts of southern Afghanistan that rivalled what we saw last year."


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