Washington, October 31: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that the Taliban insurgents are gaining power despite the oversized American military presence.
In a Friday interview with the ABC television, Clinton admitted that ‘the Taliban has momentum’ in what analysts denounced as an understatement of the unprecedented insurgent control over the war-torn country.
The US-led forces invaded the country in 2001 on American orders accusing the Taliban of supporting al-Qaeda, which the US officials blame for September 11, 2001 attacks, and to ‘bring an end to the suffering of the Afghan people’.
Afghanistan is currently grappling with the highest level of violence, largely seen as an insurgent reaction to the presence of more than 100,000 international forces under the US command.
The American and other foreign troops have so far fallen short of arresting or eliminating any key insurgent leader while killing many thousands of Afghan civilians during their clashes with the Taliban or miscalculated attacks on alleged militant hideouts.
Clinton, though, insisted that the United States was not losing the war.
Washington is criticized for its excessive reliance on military power instead of concerted efforts at forging a self-sufficient Afghan administration.
Clinton, however, said, “There might have been too much emphasis on the central government and the idea that there could be some kind of nation-building that would transform Afghanistan overnight.”
“Well, we don’t accept that. We don’t think that’s going to happen….”
—–Agencies