WE'RE SCREWING UP A WAR WE SHOULD HAVE WON, DRUG LORDS AND EXTREMISTS ARE GAINING STRENGTH, BUT THE NAMES OF OUR OPERATIONS SOUND LIKE VAN HALEN SONGS, SO EVERYTHING'S COOL

Suspected Taliban guerrillas in the southern province of Helmand ambushed and killed 32 people on Sunday, all of them relatives and tribesmen of an influential member of Parliament, among them a former local government official, the legislator said Monday.

The attack, in broad daylight, was the latest sign of the strength of the suspected Taliban insurgents in Helmand, a poppy-growing province where NATO and the Afghan Army have recently increased their troops in an effort to contain the spreading insurgency....

--New York Times

In their biggest show of strength in nearly five years, pro-Taliban fighters are terrorizing southern Afghanistan -- ambushing military patrols, assassinating opponents and even enforcing the law in remote villages where they operate with near impunity.

"We are faced with a full-blown insurgency," says Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia.

Four and a half years after they overthrew the Islamic militia that had controlled much of Afghanistan, U.S.-led forces have been forced to ramp up the battle to stabilize this impoverished, shattered country. More than 10,000 U.S., Canadian, British and Afghan government troops are scouring southern and eastern Afghanistan in a campaign called Operation Mountain Thrust....

--USA Today