Violence rising in Afghanistan

The UN estimates that more than 1,500 civilians died in Afghanistan in 2007, more than 50% than the year before. Terrorism has been on the rise. This professor says insurgents in Afghanistan are adopting methods that had success in Iraq. For humanitarian organizations, this change in tactics is changing the rules. This aid worker says today groups like his are a target and three or four years ago that was not the case. Now they’re seen as part of the occupation says this analyst, and aid workers have become a pawn in the game. NATO officials said suicide attacks on aid workers are a sign of the Taliban’s weakness, that they failed on the conventional battlefield. Whatever the military assessment, this trend is tremendously worrying says this military analyst who points out that suicide attacks are alien to Afghan culture, meaning the suicide bombers are foreign insurgents. It’s believed most of those terrorists are coming in from Pakistan. Some aid organizations have already stopped working in Afghanistan.