KABUL — Eight Afghan police gunned down at a checkpoint. Campaign workers kidnapped. Spanish trainers shot dead on their base.
A spurt of violence this week in provinces far from the Taliban’s main southern strongholds suggests the insurgency is spreading, even as the top U.S. commander insists the coalition has reversed the militants’ momentum in key areas of the ethnic Pashtun south where the Islamist movement was born.
Attacks in the country’s north and west — though not militarily significant — demonstrate that the Taliban are becoming a threat across wide areas of Afghanistan, even as the United States and its partners mount a major effort to turn the tide of the nearly 9-year-old war in the south.
Earlier this month, 10 members of a Christian medical team — six Americans, two Afghans, one German and a Briton — were gunned down in Badakhshan, a northern province that had seen little insurgent activity. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
In an interview aired Monday by the British Broadcasting Corp., top U.S. and NATO commander Gen. David Petraeus said NATO forces had reversed the momentum that the Taliban gained in recent years in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar and in the Kabul area. He said coalition forces would regain momentum in other areas later, although tough fighting lies ahead.
Taliban influence in the north and west is not as pervasive as in the south. The insurgency has been slowly expanding its presence in areas such as Kunduz, Faryab and Baghlan since 2007, mostly among Pashtuns who are a minority in the north.
A member of parliament from Herat said security in the province could be worse but it is not ideal, especially in remote villages far from the provincial capital.
“There are a lot of reasons — political reasons, factional reasons, tribal reasons — so together the situation is not so good,” said the lawmaker, Ali Ahmad Jebraili. “I hope the government puts professional and proper security measures in place to search vehicles and people for attackers and bombers. When we travel to remote areas, we have to be careful.”
In establishing a northern foothold, Afghan authorities believe, the Taliban are using veterans from southern battlefields to help organize local groups, sometimes with help from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which provides recruits from among the Uzbek minority.
“The situation is very bad and dangerous in Kunduz but unfortunately the security officials keep saying things are all right,” said Mabubullah Mabub, chairman of the Kunduz provincial council. “Over the last two years, the situation has been getting worse.”
A study published last spring by the Afghan Analyst Network, an independent policy research organization, said that expanding into the north and west strengthens the Taliban claim to be a legitimate national government fighting on behalf of the Afghan people and not simply the Pashtun community.
It also enables the Taliban to threaten NATO supply lines coming south from Central Asia. Those routes were established to reduce reliance on supply lines from Pakistan, which come under attack from fighters on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border.
“Furthermore, there is no doubt that the psychological impact of the north’s destabilization upon Western Europe and the U.S. would be considerable, overstretching resources as well as reducing the recruitment pool of Afghan army and police by enabling the Taliban to intimidate the families of volunteers,” the study said.
Incidents this week
• About a dozen gunmen stormed a police checkpoint Thursday at the entrance to the city of Kunduz, about 150 miles north of Kabul. Eight police officers were killed, said provincial police chief Abdul Raziq Yaqoubi.
• A candidate in next month’s parliamentary elections said 10 of her campaign workers were kidnapped Wednesday while traveling in the northwestern province of Herat, 450 miles west of the capital.
• Three Spaniards — two police trainers and an interpreter — were fatally shot Wednesday at a training base in Badghis province, about 230 miles northwest of Kabul. The shooter, who was also killed, was a police driver who local officials said was a brother- in-law of a local Taliban commander.
