Let's not forget Afghanistan! NEWSDESK
03 Apr 2003 06:56:28 GMT
ANALYSIS-As US fights to win Iraq, it could lose Afghan peace
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By Simon Denyer
KABUL, April 3 (Reuters) - As the United States pushes for a decisive victory in the war in Iraq, fears are mounting that it may be about to "lose the peace" in Afghanistan.

With security deteriorating, the Taliban re-emerging, warlords reluctant to give up power, neighbouring countries interfering and the world's attention distracted by Iraq, the achievements of the past year and a half in Afghanistan are in danger of unravelling.

Aid workers sometimes talk of a window of opportunity for restoring confidence in the Afghan state and rebuilding the country from the rubble of more than two decades of war.

"The balance is going the wrong way," said Rafael Robillard of aid coordinating body Acbar. "The window is in danger of closing."

Perhaps of greatest concern is the "security vacuum" caused by the central government's feeble hold over the country, and the world's unwillingness to station peacekeepers outside Kabul.

That vacuum is preventing promised aid and development reaching large parts of the south and east, adding to the disenchantment of majority ethnic Pashtuns who feel they are not properly represented in the power structures in Kabul.

Into that vacuum has stepped the Taliban, the fundamentalist militia ousted from government by U.S.-backed opposition groups in late 2001. These days they are not a major political force, but they can have a massive nuisance value.

Last week, they are said to have murdered a Salvadorean Red Cross worker in a roadside ambush, the first killing of a foreign aid worker in the country in at least five years. His death has sent shockwaves through the aid community and made foreign aid workers even more reluctant to leave the major cities.

"I don't think the Taliban can win," said one diplomat, "but they can set things back a long way."