Bill,

The Soviets promoted a worker's movement, focused in the Cities. Mao tried that and it fell flat, so they shifted to rural areas where their message of land reform resonated more effectively in their agrarian society. Bottom line is, as an insurgent leader go with what works, not with what the book says. Actually that is some damn good advice for our COIN gurus as well...

There can be many reasons why more activity happens outside a city rather than in, some as simple as the old rule of not defecating where one eats.

Most of the insurgency we see inside of Afghanistan is the resistance (small t taliban) against the US forces, and the populaces with the most reason for resisting the US/NATO forces are in the rural areas where we have been operating.

Similarly, the revolutionary aspect of the insurgency (coming out of Pakistan where the Big T Taliban take sanctuary) primarily targets the low hanging fruit of GIRoA governance, and it is much easier to take out a police outpost or disrupt traffic on some remote highway than it is to storm the Provincial HQ.