"More foreign fighters join Taliban in Afghanistan"

By Jon Hemming
Reuters
Wednesday, July 30, 2008; 6:59 AM

KABUL (Reuters) - More foreign fighters are joining the ranks of
Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan as militants increasingly cross the
border from Pakistan to attack Afghan and Western troops, the Afghan
Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan has kept up a barrage of criticism against neighbor
Pakistan in the last three months, accusing Pakistani agents of being
behind a string of high-profile attacks and allowing militants
sanctuary along the long and porous border.

"The presence of foreign fighters is increasing, and increasingly the
operations of the terrorists are led by foreigners," Defense Ministry
spokesman General Mohammad Zaher Azimi told a news conference.

Afghan, NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces are struggling to contain a
sharp surge in violence as the traditional summer fighting season gets
into full swing.

"Americans remain virtually alone in still thinking of our involvement
in Iraq as a war.

To the Iraqi people it long since became a military occupation.

Wars are won or lost, but there is no way an occupation can be either
won or lost. It can only be ended."

BEN KREMENAK
Silver Spring, Maryland

[The writer is a senior fellow at the Center for International and
Security Studies in the School of Public Policy at the University of
Maryland.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/03/AR2008080301433....