Events this spring — from the battlefields of Helmand and Kandahar to the halls of Congress — have served as a reality check on the Afghan war, a gruelling fight in a remote, inhospitable land that once harboured the masterminds of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The Taliban have proven resilient and won’t be easily routed. Good Afghan Government won’t blossom any faster than flowers in the bleak Afghan deserts. Phrases like "transition to Afghan control" mask the enormous challenge ahead to make those words reality.

President Barack Obama may face a difficult choice next year: slow the withdrawal of US troops that he promised would start in July 2011 or risk an Afghanistan where the Taliban have a significant political role.

Last week’s hearings on Capitol Hill revealed deep concern within Congress over Pentagon assurances of progress in the nearly nine-year war. Members of Congress complained of mounting casualties — at least 53 foreign troop deaths this month including 34 Americans.

That prompted Defence Secretary Robert Gates to complain about negative perceptions in Washington about the war, even though his top military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, acknowledged "we all have angst" about the course of the conflict.

Truth lies in both camps. Bombs and battles are far less frequent in Kabul than in Baghdad during the height of the Iraq war. The major Afghan cities of Mazar-e-Sharif in the north and Herat in the west are relatively quiet.

In the countryside, however, where three-quarters of Afghanistan’s nearly 30 million people live, the insurgents still wield power, moving freely among the population, operating their own Islamic courts and intimidating those who support the Government.

Progress is real but scattered and incremental. All parties here predict a tough summer. July 2011 may be too soon to ensure success — even though the top NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal acknowledges he’s under pressure to show progress by the end of the year.

Instead of spurring the Afghans to step up to the plate, the July 2011 date has encouraged President Hamid Karzai to seek a deal with the Taliban despite US misgivings that the time is right for a settlement.

"Two critical questions dominate any realistic discussion of the conflict. The first is whether the war is worth fighting. The second is whether it can be won. The answers to both questions are uncertain," former Pentagon analyst Anthony Cordesman wrote last week.

A few months ago, things seemed to have been going better. For the first time in years the tide appeared to have been turning. In February, the US and its allies seized the insurgents’ southern stronghold of Marjah, rushing in a local administration and promising development aid to win the loyalty of the people.

NATO and Afghan troops also delivered blows to the militants in the north and west. After Marjah, the alliance shifted attention to Kandahar, promising to ramp up security in the largest city in the south and the former Taliban headquarters.

Within weeks, however, the Taliban were back in Marjah, threatening and assassinating those who co-operated with the Americans and their Afghan partners. The security effort in Kandahar slowed to a crawl, in large part because of public opposition to the campaign for fear it would lead to more bloodshed.

The Taliban responded by planting more of their signature weapon — roadside bombs that the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Those hidden bombs not only account for most of the deaths among international troops but they reduce their effectiveness in controlling territory where the Taliban operate. With so many bombs along roads and footpaths, troops on patrol can cover only a limited area since they must move slowly searching for hidden IEDs.

In April, gunmen assassinated the deputy mayor of Kandahar as he knelt for evening prayers in a mosque. This month, a car bomb killed the chief of the Kandahar district of Arghandab. Days before, a suicide bomber killed 56 people at a wedding party in the same district.

Those setbacks came as no surprise to commanders in Afghanistan, many of whom cautioned privately after Marjah that major challenges lay ahead. In the brutal calculus of war, more casualties are inevitable as the US pours more troops into Afghanistan — from about 30,000 in 2008 to more than 94,000 now. About 10,000 more are due in August.

But in a war without front lines, fought in scores of small engagements scattered throughout this stark, mountainous country, it becomes difficult to quantify progress. Cities don’t fall to victorious forces. Real estate doesn’t change hands as in conventional wars.

Instead, the Afghan war is a battle for public support — a challenge for a foreign power absent a reliable local partner. NATO’s policy of working alongside the Afghan Government means each suffers a loss of prestige from the other’s mistakes.

"They should leave Afghanistan because they didn’t come to protect this country," Maulvi Sarajuddin, a leading cleric in Baghlan province, said of the international troops. "They came here and insecurity continues. Nothing has changed. In the past eight years, the country is more unstable and corruption has seized the throats of the Afghan people."

Securing a reliable local partner turned the tide of the Iraq war when Sunni insurgents abandoned al-Qaeda and joined with the Americans just as the US troop surge of 2006 and 2007 was under way.

US allies gained little reassurance about the reliability of the Afghan Government when Karzai — a key pillar of Obama’s war strategy — this month let go two respected members of his national security team, one of whom had questioned overtures to the Taliban.

The lack of solid local allies lies at the heart of the delays in Kandahar. The local government is weak and underfunded, held hostage to tribal leaders and politically connected businessmen whose wheeling and dealing have undercut support for the central government.

Cultivating and empowering new partners takes time — a resource the US-led force may not have. Support for the war in the US and Europe is fading.

The Dutch plan to pull their 1,600 troops from Afghanistan by August. Canada, with about 2,800 soldiers, plans to end its combat role here next year. The Poles are pressing for NATO to draw up an exit strategy. Britain’s new prime minister has expressed support for the war but has ruled out sending more troops. The Pentagon has been pleading for months for its European allies to send more people to train Afghan forces.

Despite assurances to the contrary, many pro-government Afghans fear they may be abandoned by the US after Obama’s July 2011 date to start the withdrawal. They fear that time is too short for the coalition to train and equip an effective Afghan force to protect the country.

"It is better for foreign forces to stay," said Aziza Misami, a member of the provincial council in Ghazni. "Unfortunately, when the foreign troops leave, the first victim will be Afghan women because the Taliban don’t like women. The second victim will be the Afghan nation."

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In the second, 24-minute part of a video released in March and posted on militant Web sites Sunday, Adam Gadahn said the Democrats’ loss in January of the Massachusetts Senate seat underlined Obama’s falling popularity.

In white robes and turban, Gadahn told Obama: "You’re no longer the popular man you once were, a year ago or so."

Gadahn is wanted by the FBI since 2004 with a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction. He is also known as Azzam al-Amriki, Arabic for American.

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Curtis, a senior research fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, said any genuine thaw in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan would be welcome, however, the idea that the U.S. would take a back seat in any effort to negotiate an end to the war in Afghanistan defies logic.

“The U.S. has not lost over 1,000 U.S. soldiers in battle and invested billions of U.S. dollars in Afghanistan only to allow Pakistan to re-install its violent proxies there,” Curtis noted.

She blamed the Obama administration policies for the Pakistan’s attempt to pushing for a political settlement in Afghanistan that favours its proxy and the US’ enemy, such as the Haqqani network, the Al-Qaeda-linked group which has constantly targeted America led foreign forces in war ravaged Afghanistan.

“The Obama administration’s lack of a clear policy on reconciliation also is contributing to Karzai’s flailing about on the issue. Karzai recently fired respected Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh over differences on the Taliban reconciliation issue,” Curtis said.

“Senior administration officials (including Obama himself) have repeatedly said any reconciliation with the Taliban must be Afghan-led, and they have failed to assert a clear U.S. role and vision for this process,” she added.

Curtis warned that if Washington fails to play a more ‘direct role’ in the reconciliation process, it risks squandering the entire situation in Afghanistan, which would then allow the country to return to extremist forces friendly to those who still intent on attacking the US. (ANI)

Read more: http://www.sindhtoday.net/news/2/148339.htm#ixzz0rfS6YbWW

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Three missiles struck a house in the Khaisur area of the North Waziristan tribal region near the border with Afghanistan, said two intelligence officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists. The identities of the dead were not known.

Washington has fired more than 30 missiles this year at militant targets close to the Afghan border, killing scores of alleged insurgents. U.S. officials do not publicly acknowledge being behind the attacks. The missiles are fired from unmanned drones launched either from Afghanistan or — according to some media reports — from secret bases in Pakistan.

Pakistani officials protest the strikes, but the country’s military is thought to provide intelligence for some of them.

In the Swat Valley, where security force carried out an operation a year ago that succeeded in pushing back militants, security forces killed three suspected insurgents after a standoff that began late Sunday, said local police chief Feroz Khan.

Khan said the three were alleged to be involved in recent killings in the area, which still sees sporadic violence.

Also in the northwest, the body of an anti-Taliban tribal elder was found in the Bajur tribal region.

The killers left a note on the body of Maulana Abdul Haleem stating “any one found involved in helping the government against the Taliban will meet the same fate,” Khan said.

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The Bharatis were lead down the primrose path by Condaleeza and her sweet talk about making Bharat a superpower with a seat at the Security Council. When that didn’t happen, Bharat blames Obama. No one can deliver Superpower status to anyone, and only countries that have gone towards it have built regional relationships and friendships with all their neighbors.

Right after the US invaded Afghanistan, Delhi adopted the American jargon to push its own agenda. A gatecrasher to the Nuclear Club it started lecturing the world on the dangers of proliferation. Bharat the greater instigator of

There is nobody to blame for the malaise than the Bharati hawks themselves. The Bharati strategic thinkers demand perpetual mimetic warfare in Afghanistan. Their vainglorious sophistry dictates that they constantly vocalize their determination to vanquish the Taliban, and if the Americans cant do it, they want to do it themselves. Never mind the fact that half of Bharati territory is in the hands of the Maoists who boast that they will take over Delhi in a decade. For the hawks in Delhi, America is too fickle, China too quiet, Russia to obsequious, NATO too impetuous, and of course Pakistan too mercurial. They don’t see the Clausewitzean dimensions of the war, in which NATO was implanted in the Pamirs so that it could keep a watch on China, and guard the oil lanes of Central Asia.

The Delhi diplomatic corps blames the entire world for the ills bedeviling the circumstances that they find themselves in. They scapegoat President Obama for the schism in Indo-American relations. They are mad at American Generals for thinking about ending the war. They are angry at NATO for planning an exit strategy, and they are furious at ISAF for not allowing Bharati forces to end the unfinished job. Delhi simply cannot comprehend the notion that the UK is determined to end the war, seeking the reintegration of the Taliban with the central government and reconciliation in Kabul. They feel badly let down. Bharat is mad with the US about not getting access to Mr. Headley.

Delhi is deeply chagrined that it is not in the drivers seat in Kabul–even though it is a fact that it never was. The punditry is unable to comprehend the new reality of the Talaban because its world view has been shaped at the temple which tells them that Bharat has ruled and is detained to rule from Kabul to Indonesia–never mind the anomaly that Ashoka probably never existed, was concocted by Sir John Princep and Pandit Radhakantta, that Qandar is not a mythical city out of any scripture but a city founded by Alexander and named after him.

Bharat finds itself totally isolated in the region and the vicinity about its worldview of the Taliban. Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Europeans, the Americas and the Afghans themselves are of the opinion that the Taliban are part of the solution. Even so the Bharati military industrial complex is unable comprehend the advantages of talking to the Taliban or see the profits of having peace in Kabul. It may surprise the residents of Rashpati Bhavan but Bharat doesn’t have any locus standii in the matter.

The Bharatis grow up in a cocoon of self indulgence and bigoted hatred towards all their neighbors. They feel the birth of the country was a trauma because it did not include the revanchist and irredentist dreams of the kleptomaniac Socialistic Brahman founding fathers. The Delhi establishment thinks it is their god given right to continue the Nehruvian kleptomania and expand the borders of their land. An overwhelming body of that Bharati elite doesn’t have a clue about Afghanistan or the complexities of Central Asia. All they remember is Lord Curzon and how he planted the Union Jack in Kabul. They see themselves as successors to the British Empire and want to see the Tricolor flying high in Afghanistan. Their notion of Pathans are nurtured by the swashbuckling Khans of Bollywood who entertain them on a daily basis. Most don’t know, or have selective amnesia about the British defeats at the Battle of Gandawak, the Battle of Mainwand, and the ignominious defeat and retreat of Lord Curzon’s forces from the Oxus back to the Indus. Bharatis don’t understand the ruthless realities of the Afghan countryside, and have never read what Kipling said about Afghanistan.

Bharat always underestimates Islamabad and its deep cognition of Afghan affairs. They are fed a few lines by predatory and discredited Afghan “leaders”, and they think that they have built lasting bridges of friendship with the entire country. Delhi seems to forget that like Najibullha Mr. Karzai rode on the backs of an invading army–and neither have any real roots in Afghanistan.

Delhi forgets that Pakistan has 40 million Pathans who have kith and kin in Afghanistan. How can Delhi top that? Bharati politicians, when they boast of good ties with Afghanistan forget that 50,000 Afghans cross the border into Pakistan everyday–without any papers, visa document or hindrance from the Pakistan authorities. Talk about the world friendliest border. Delhi seems to foget that about half the Pakhtun population was born in Pakistan and that 3 million Afghans still reside in Quetta and other places. If the rumors of a Quetta Shura had any foundation, it was because of the huge concentration of Afghans in Quetta. Hundreds of thousands have second homes in Pakistan. The Bharatis have tough competition from the Khyber. The Bharati media and think tanks are in awe that Pakistan was shrewd enough to assess the changing tide and take advantage of its geography, history, geopolitical positioning, ethnic bonding, tribal affiliation, and religious bondage. While Delhi has to work at it, and use translators to talk to the Afghans, it all comes naturally to Pakistanis. The Pakistani army has a disproportionate percentage of Pakhtuns, and the Frontier Corps is overwhelmingly Pakhtun. The Frontier Constabulary is totally Pakhtun–thus Pakistan doesn’t have to work at it–it comes naturally. Thirty years of war have created an adhesive symbiosis between the two lands, and the boundaries have become irrelevant. Pakhtuns are part of the fabric of Pakistan–the largest Pathan city is Karachi, not Kabul.

When Delhi brags about spending $1.3 billion in Afghanistan, skeptical Afghans smirk, and Pakistanis smile. After all the US has spent $143 billion in aid and not cannot win a popularity contest in Afghanistan. Pakistanis shed blood for the Afghans everday. Two million Pakistanis and brothers died in liberating them from the Russians, and today the Pakistanis provide them with succor and refuge. After all blood is thicker than water.

Bharat deals with the English speaking carpetbagging in Mazaar Sharif, and the druglord bottom feeders in Kabul and it thinks that it has developed roots in Kabul. The real Afghans have driven taxis in Karachi, worked as laborers in Lahore and trekked through the Khyber dozens of times. Bharati naiveté in Afghan affairs is displayed when it supported Mr. Abdullah against Mr. Karzai. Just because Mr. Abdullah has studied in Bharat, doesn’t give him any credentials to represent real Afghans. The fact that he cannot speak a sentence of Pushto or Darri surely doesn’t help him–nor does it help Delhi. After having soundly defeated the American favorite, Mr. Kazai has traveled to Islamabad and declared that Pakistan and Afghanistan are conjoined twins. This from the most pro-Bharti Afghan president in history.

Bharat made similar errors in the US presidential election openly showing preference for a Republican victory. President Obama wants to win the 2nd term as president. He has a good chance if he can bring closure to the Afghan war, declare victory and bring back the troops. This would immensely please the leftist core of his party, and dumbfound the Republicans who may be lead by an American war hero, General Patraeus himself.

Both the civilian and military leadership in Washington clearly recognize the fact that the unsustainable Afghan conflict has to be ended. There is bipartisan recognition that the exorbitant and futile war is stalemated with the Taliban controlling 80% of the country. Reversing the reality on the ground is too expensive, and possibly impossible.

The Americans had abandoned Afghanistan and walked away from Pakistan after they defeated the Russians. That blunder has been recognized by the entire American leadership and is well documents. President Obama is committed not to repeat the mistakes of his predecessors. President Bush promised Islamabad that the Northern Alliance would not be given the reins of Kabul and a coalition government would take control of Afghanistan. It was double crossed and lied to. The American media doesn’t mention this duplicity.

President Obama knows there can be no peace in Afghanistan without Pakistan. He also knows that the Bharatis want to continue the war. His Generals have told him that the would like to come home. His ambassadors and Secretary of State tells him the Pakistanis will help him get out of Afghanistan with a face saving exit if he doesn’t do what his predecessor did, he knows what he has to do. The Pakistanis are deeply mistrustful of the Americans and will not give him a blank check. They will monitor the situation and help the Americans if they play ball. When Mr. Manmohan Singh tells him that Bharat will be staying in Afghanistan, he simply smiles. President Obama knows that he cannot cross the Pakistani again.

As Ambassador Bhadrakumar in a recent article in Asia Times points out in a recent article “the hard reality is that relations with Pakistan remain the core issue in its foreign policy.” He points out that during Manmohan’s visit to Washington there were 30 direct or indirect references to Pakistan and all but two quesitons were about Pakistan.

Bharat remains stuck in the quagmire of its own making. Only it can save itself from slipping deeper into the abyss of foreign policy failure.

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cross Afghanistan, behind the obvious battles fought for this country’s soul, a shadow war is being quietly waged. It’s being fought with spies and proxies, with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money and ominous diplomatic threats.

The fight pits nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan against one another in a battle for influence that will almost certainly gain traction as the clock ticks down toward America’s military withdrawal, which President Barack Obama has announced will begin next year.

The clash has already sparked bloody militant attacks, and American officials fear the region could become further destabilized. With Pakistani intelligence maintaining ties to Afghanistan’s Taliban militants, India has threatened to draw Iran, Russia and other nations into the competition if an anti-Indian government comes to power in Kabul.

“This is a delicate game going on here,” said Daoud Muradian, a senior adviser to the Afghan Foreign Ministry. He spoke wearily about how Afghanistan, a mountainous crossroads linking South Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia, has for centuries often been little more than a stage for other countries’ power struggles. “We don’t want to be forced to choose between India and Pakistan.”

For both India and Pakistan, Afghanistan is an exceedingly valuable prize.

To India, ties with Kabul mean new trade routes, access to Central Asia’s vast energy reserves and a way to stave off the rise of Islamic militancy. It means the chance for New Delhi to undermine Islamabad as it nurtures its superpower aspirations by expanding its regional influence.

While Pakistan is also desperate for new energy supplies, its Afghan policy has been largely shaped by the view that Afghanistan is its natural ally. The two countries share a long border, overwhelmingly Muslim populations and deep ethnic links.

Then there is fear. Pakistan and India have already fought three wars over the past seven decades, and Pakistani military leaders are terrified of someday being trapped militarily between India on one border and a pro-India Afghanistan on the other.

“We can’t afford an unfriendly government in Afghanistan,” said Mohammad Sadiq, Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan.

The shadow war began in earnest in the wake of the 2001 U.S. invasion, when the Taliban government was forced from power and New Delhi began courting Afghanistan’s new leaders. It was a move into a country that Islamabad, a fierce supporter of the Taliban government, had seen as its diplomatic territory for two decades. But New Delhi quickly became a close ally of President Hamid Karzai, who will travel to India early next week for talks aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries.

On the surface, both India and Pakistan are bringing help to a country that desperately needs it.

New Delhi has built highways in the western deserts and brought electricity to Kabul. It is constructing a new Parliament building and offers free medical care in clinics across Afghanistan. Despite its immense spending needs — India has widespread poverty and staggering infrastructure problems despite its rapidly growing economy — it has given more than $1.3 billion in development aid.

That, in turn, has sparked Pakistani efforts, with Islamabad spending about $350 million on everything from school textbooks to buses.

But this is far from pure humanitarianism.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, laid out the situation bluntly: “While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures,” he warned in a report late last year.

Heightened tensions are the last thing the U.S. wants. The Afghan war has killed more than 1,800 coalition soldiers — more than 1,100 of them Americans. More than 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed just last year.

If the competition over Afghanistan is rooted in a cocktail of issues, much of it revolves around the Taliban.

New Delhi’s perceptions of modern Afghanistan have been molded by its memories of the 1996-2001 Taliban government, the fundamentalist Muslim regime which rose to power with Pakistan’s help.

It was a time when New Delhi was openly despised in Kabul, when anti-India insurgents trained in Afghan camps and the hijackers of an Indian airliner were welcomed here as heroes. Even after the Taliban government fell, Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, retained links to the Taliban insurgency now battling the American-led forces and the Karzai government, in case the Taliban ever return to power.

But if there’s one thing New Delhi does not want, it’s another militant Islamic government in Kabul.

“We want the stabilization of Afghanistan because it is directly related to our security. Plain and simple,” said Jayant Prasad, the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, speaking inside his heavily guarded Kabul residence.

India has paid heavily for its Afghan involvement. The Indian Embassy was bombed in 2008 and again last year, leaving 75 people dead. Six Indians were killed by militants during the construction of an India-funded highway.

Two Kabul guest houses popular among Indians have been attacked. The last attack, in February, left at least six Indians dead and forced New Delhi to temporarily close its medical and teaching missions in Kabul. India blamed that attack on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, the same group believed to be behind the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

India and the United States have both said the embassy attacks were carried out by militants allied to Pakistan’s ISI.

The Pakistanis “are bringing the proxy war to Afghanistan and we are the targets,” said Prasad.

It’s an accusation that Pakistan angrily denies.

“India has always used Afghanistan against us,” said Sadiq, the Pakistani ambassador.

Karzai has made little secret of his preference for India. The president, who was educated in India, has loudly welcomed New Delhi’s assistance while rarely mentioning Pakistan’s aid.

Other Afghan officials barely disguise their distrust of Pakistan.

Pakistan wants “a puppet state in Kabul, a subservient state,” said Muradian, the foreign ministry adviser. “India wants a stable, pluralistic Afghanistan.”

Certainly, India has shown it is willing to play diplomatic hardball.

Even India’s allies say New Delhi has a large presence in Afghanistan from its foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW. At least one victim of the February guest house attack was an undercover RAW agent, a senior Afghan official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

According to Islamabad, many of those agents are providing support to separatist militants in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province — an accusation New Delhi denies.

The reality remains murky. Pakistan keeps Baluchistan largely sealed off to outsiders. Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Indian intelligence is believed to be in contact with the Baluchi separatists, though it’s unclear if they provide any support.

India also is keeping in reserve its longtime links to Afghan warlords, in case Afghanistan is again divided by violence.

For years, New Delhi supplied the leaders of the Northern Alliance, the collection of ethnic militias that battled the Taliban (and often one another), with food, intelligence and medical care. Later, after the Alliance helped the U.S. oust the Taliban in 2001, the warlords scattered into government and business — and sometimes into crime or exile.

But India remains in close contact with a range of the former militia leaders, according to people with close ties to New Delhi’s foreign policy elite, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

New Delhi’s biggest worry is that U.S. forces will withdraw from Afghanistan before Karzai’s government is in full control of the country. An early withdrawal, India fears, could allow Islamabad and the Taliban militants to gain more power in Afghanistan and potentially even usher in another government hostile to New Delhi.

While a full American pullout appears unlikely anytime soon, U.S. military officials have angered New Delhi by talking about the possibility of allowing some Taliban to join the Afghan government.

India warns it could form a coalition with Iran — an alliance that would infuriate Washington — if the Taliban appear poised to return to power. The “self-interested coalition” could include Russia and several Central Asian states that would also fear a Taliban return, according to an Indian with knowledge of the diplomatic maneuvering.

For now, though, India’s program to win Afghan hearts and minds is clearly working.

Take the three Indian doctors working in the dusty northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif, dispensing prescriptions and performing surgeries in a faded colonial-era hospital that somehow survived the years of fighting.

Every morning, clusters of women in blue burqas gather in the narrow hallway outside the clinic, while men wait in the parking lot. They are the poorest people in one of the world’s poorest countries: widows, the unemployed, the elderly. They measure the distance to the clinic by the cost of getting there — and a 10-cent bus ride is a painful investment.

About 150 arrive every day for free care and medicine.

An old man named Myagul — he has only one name, and didn’t know his age — had been coughing badly, he said, and growing dizzy when he stood up. The doctors prescribed blood pressure medicine and cough syrup. He’d already been to a handful of doctors, but they had all asked for fees he couldn’t afford.

But on a warm Afghan morning, the old man with the greasy beard and the torn blazer left the clinic clutching a handful of medicines, weary but pleased.

“Finally it was these Indians who helped.”

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Styled after the anonymous British vandal-artist Banksy, Kabul’s streetwise stealth stencillers go by the moniker “Talibanksy”, a reference to the Islamist Taliban who have been waging war in Afghanistan for almost nine years.

The street art forms a commentary on the cost in blood and treasure of the war, which has brought 126,000 US and NATO troops to Afghanistan and kills about 2,000 Afghan civilians a year, according to the UN.

Black, spray-painted silhouettes of soldiers and dollar signs, poppies, helicopters and tanks, and children running hand-in-hand began appearing in downtown Kabul a few months ago.

Some show the shadow of a helmeted soldier holding an assault rifle, inside a red circle with a line through it. Others have a silhouetted gun-toting trooper and a dollar sign joined by an equals symbol.

Or simply the words: Cost Of War.

Financially the war is estimated to cost some 100 million dollars a day, according to US media reports.

The human cost to foreign forces so far this year is close to 170, according to the icasualties.org website which keeps tally and says that of the 1,737 who have died since the war began in 2001, 1,051 were Americans.

The people behind the anti-war graffiti call themselves Combat Communications, and claim to be “a small anonymous group of international artists founded last year with the sole aim of advocating/promoting free expression”.

According to a statement, they wish to remain anonymous and call their work “social and politically driven graphics”.

“This form of self-expression is open to anyone. The youth of Kabul have no real outlet for artistic expression,” it says, adding: “Do they want it?”

The Westerners behind Combat Communications declined to speak to AFP, saying they wanted to keep a low profile while they developed their strategy.

Their graffiti appear across the central residential and commercial districts of Kabul, alongside spray-painted advertisements for translation services, real estate agents, plumbers, septic tank cleaners and roofers.

Since the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan has begun moving towards democracy — with the second parliamentary election set for September — and freedom of expression is protected by the constitution.

Yet as the insurgency moves deep into its ninth year and the US-led counter-insurgency revs up with foreign troop numbers set to peak by August at 150,000, Kabul remains a city scarred by war and corruption.

Open drains run alongside the main roads, few sidestreets are paved, traffic control is derisory and public transport virtually non-existent.

Two-metre-high concrete blast walls surround most public buildings and embassies, and residential neighbourhoods feature the “narco-tecture” of garishly-tiled, multi-storey mansions most believe are built with the proceeds of the three-billion-dollar-a-year illicit drugs trade.

A cloud of filth from diesel-powered vehicles sits atop a city surrounded on three sides by the peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains, and piles of garbage are picked over by beggars and animals alike.

Consumer price inflation is said to be around 20 percent, helicopter gunships provide an almost constant overhead clatter, and Afghans desperate to leave their country for a new life form long queues at visa offices.

Into this harsh landscape, the sudden appearance of modern street art has added a touch of colour and controversy — and the blast walls provide the perfect canvas.

Talibanksy’s tags are not yet as ubiquitous as Banksy’s guerilla art became in London and other British cities over the last decade.

Nor is it as sophisticated, so far presenting little more than simple anti-war messages and slogans, in contrast to the infinitely more clever, caustic and creative Banksy murals.

And whereas Banksy branched out to the US, Australia and the Middle East, becoming an international phenomenon and wealthy in the process, Combat Communications appears to be starting out with more modest ambitions.

The statement contains an anti-capitalist message, hitting out at the massive billboards that dominate city intersections, advertising telecommunications firms or warning against involvement in the drugs trade.

“‘Selling the peace’ AKA (also known as) winning the war, has also become a big industry. Propaganda is everywhere from counter-narcotic campaigns to counter-terrorism to army recruitment. You can’t move without some form of visual purposeful persuasion burning a hole in your soul,” it says.

“Social and politically driven graphics, AKA street art, can evoke thought and stimulate discussion.

“Watch your public space,” the statement says.

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British troops could be the last to leave Afghanistan after it emerged that a new “road map” for handing over control would not include the southern provinces.

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that commanders were looking at creating a “critical mass” of provinces that would be able to withstand a surge of Taliban activity. Those are likely to be in the north of the country rather than Helmand in the south, where British forces are concentrated. British troops have born the brunt of the Afghan insurgency since they arrived in Helmand in 2006 and, although stability has been returned to some districts, the overall situation in the province remains dangerous.

The neighbouring provinces of Kandahar, Uruzgan and Paktika are also highly unstable.

The new framework for the handover of control in Afghanistan was agreed by Nato foreign ministers at a meeting in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, last week.

Gordon Brown had said last year that a handover of Helmand districts would be a vital part of the process of withdrawing British troops.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato secretary-general, insisted that the process should be “conditions based not calendar based” but he said there was now a “road-map” in place.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said: “We believe that with sufficient attention, training and mentoring, the Afghans are perfectly capable of defending themselves against insurgents.” But she added: “Does that mean it will be smooth sailing? I don’t think so. Look at Iraq.”

No details on conditions required for a handover were disclosed but it is understood they involve the ability of Afghan forces to withstand attack, a provincial government that includes different ethnic and tribal elements, and a level of development activity that is improves the lives of Afghans.

Nato is keen not to draw attention to which provinces are likely to be the first to be handed back. But they are likely to include Bamyan, where the Taliban blew up the 1,500-year-old Buddha statues in 2001, and Panjshir, the home of the anti-Taliban forces before the war.

The decision on when that point is reached will be made by commanders of the Nato force on the ground and then approved by the Afghan cabinet and the North Atlantic Council.

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While party leaders argue about where and how to save money, they have so far avoided one area where all agree huge cuts are inevitable.

They have an opportunity to make up for it during tomorrow’s television debate devoted to defence and foreign affairs. With the single, albeit important, exception of Trident – and that’s because the Liberal Democrats are opposed to an identical Conservative/Labour position – they have up to now shunned the issue.

They have been able to do so largely because of the strategic defence review that all parties agree must be set up as a matter of urgency after the election. It will have to decide on defence priorities in the face of a black hole in the defence budget identified by the independent National Audit Office as amounting to up to £36bn.

Yet as their potential political masters fill the public stage in their fight for power, behind the scenes senior military figures are already anxiously drawing up their own battle lines. In a series of remarkably frank briefings, they have been shamelessly promoting their branch of the armed forces at the expense of their two rivals. It is a critical time for all of them.

“From the defence point of view, we are at a crossroads,” said one senior army source. He added: “We are structured and equipped for the 20th century. Going on as we are is simply not an option.”

Many of Britain’s military capabilities simply “lack relevance”, he said, referring in particular to Trident, RAF bombers and plans to build carriers and buy US jets to fly from them.

They were “organised”, as he put it, “for the least likely” occurrence.

A slideshow prepared by the army shows a series of pictures illustrating different scenarios and the capabilities of different weapons systems. Under the heading “least likely”, there were pictures of a launch of a Trident missile, and an RAF jet dropping a heavy bomb. Most of the illustrations featured soldiers on the ground, fighting insurgencies, or engaged in what the army calls “soft end” operations such as coping with humanitarian disasters.

Three former generals today criticised the decision by Labour and the Conservatives to exclude the £80bn-plus Trident project from the forthcoming defence review. If the review determined there was still a need for a nuclear deterrent, a cheaper alternative should be considered, they said.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, former head of the army and now adviser to David Cameron, shared the other generals’ view that Trident should not be replaced by a like-for-like system.

Hostility to Trident is not limited to former generals. Serving senior army officers are also deeply sceptical about its relevance today.

“How do you deter a non-state actor?” asked a senior army officer, referring to Trident nuclear ballistic missiles and the most likely foreseeable conflicts, namely those against insurgents or terrorists.

The army’s illustrations of the different scenarios facing the armed forces will not be released publicly – Ministry of Defence officials are well aware how much it would provoke the navy and the RAF. The navy’s top brass are the most enthusiastic supporters of a new Trident system, which would be delivered on its submarines.

In the jockeying for position, the navy says Britain also needs the two large aircraft carriers ordered by Labour and backed by the Conservatives, as well as a modern fleet of surface ships to deal with such contemporary threats as piracy. A senior navy source privately conceded it would have to give something up but would not reveal its hand yet. “No one plays a game of poker like that,” he said.

The RAF insists it still needs squadrons of fast jets and bombers, arguing that soldiers are relying on them for protection and intelligence in Afghanistan. A senior RAF source called the aircraft “boots in the air”, in deference to the priority generally being accorded the army.

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A commanding officer today relived the “grim” moment a US aircraft dropped a 500lb bomb on a position held by British troops, killing three soldiers.

Privates Aaron McClure, Robert Foster, both 19, and John Thrumble, 21, were under intense fire in Afghanistan’s Helmand province when the F15 fighter jet, called in to help, dropped the bomb on them instead of a Taliban position a kilometre further north.

The inquest had previously heard that grid co-ordinates communicated between an air controller and an American weapons officer “did not marry up”.

McClure, of Ipswich, Suffolk; Foster, of Harlow, Essex; and Thrumble, of Maldon, Essex, all of 7 Platoon, B Company, 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment, died in the blast on 23 August 2007.

Today at Wiltshire coroner’s court, Major Tony Borgnis, officer commanding B Company, told the inquest the men came under some of the heaviest fire he had experienced outside a village called Mazdurak, in Kajaki district.

The company’s fire support group, positioned on high ground nicknamed Essex Ridge, also came under attack from Taliban in the nearby village of Risaji.

Borgnis said it was at this stage that he decided to call in air support – to drop ordnance on Risaji. He was on a corrugated rooftop in Mazdurak when he witnessed the explosion just 90 metres away.

He said: “Obviously I knew with the size of the explosion that it was close air support that had engaged in the wrong place. I immediately got on the radio to confirm if they could count the men – see if there were any casualties. I got an immediate response from 6 Platoon who confirmed it had happened close to them but everyone was OK, but I could not get any response from 7 Platoon at all.

“I kept trying to find out what had happened – I knew in my heart what happened. I was hoping everyone was OK in 7 Platoon, but I knew the platoon sergeant and commander very well and they always answered my calls quickly, so I knew something was wrong.”

After letting off smoke canisters to provide cover, and under continued heavy fire and darkening skies, Borgnis ordered extraction of the casualties. He said: “I will just paint the scene – as you can imagine it was pretty grim. We had to extract across open ground. We were still being fired upon. It was getting dark.”

McClure and Thrumble were killed instantly. Borgnis said Foster was found under a metre of rubble. A postmortem examination showed he died of asphyxia.

Earlier today, Hilary Meredith, who represents the dead soldiers’ relatives attending the inquest, said the families wanted “total transparency” from the Ministry of Defence. “The families are here today to support their boys who were all fatally injured in this incident. It’s extremely difficult to understand how in today’s modern warfare an incident like this can happen and be allowed to happen. There are lessons to be learned by the MoD. There needs to be total transparency when incidents like this happen. The families need to have the truth and facts from day one.”

The inquest continues.

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