In my humble opinion the fight in Afghanistan is currently an insurgency from a U.S. perspective. We legitimately view the Karazai government and his armed forces as the soveriegn rulers (if you will) of Afghanistan. There are numerous violent factions (TB, HiG, HQN, IMU, IJU, et. al.) that are opposed to the rule of Karazai and his current government. They view him as a US puppet and again they truly realize his influence doesn't extend much beyond Kabul and his own Presidential Palace but that doesn't stop them from wanting to overthrow him.

I don't claim to be an expert on insurgency warfare, but the shadow goverrments the Taliban have stood-up throughout RC South and RC West are nothing more than indications of an insurgent movement that is attempting to slowly and methodically overthrow the otherwise legitimate government that is in place. They assassinate politicians, police, and military figures who are loyal to Karazai. They assissinate Imam's and other religious figures who do not prostyletize their form of radical Islam. They burn schools that aren't in line with their radical Madrassa programs and dare they teach girls how to read and write that will almost always guarantee you a death sentence. They take over markets and extort 'protection' money from business owners and farmers. All these activities are daily occurences in places in cities and villages from Tarin Kowt to Kandahar to Qalat in the west.

Again, we can call it whatever we want but the SF guys I work with in country call them (bad guys) an insurgency. They are well organized and they are not only provided sanctuary (to include financing, recruiting, equipping, and training) in Pakistan but Iran is also now actively supporting the Taliban. In my opinion the lines are extremely blurred out their on the battlefield whether you're fighting a hard core Uzbek cadre or some part-time opium smuggling scumbag they are all opposed to the western forces (US, UK, and Canada) that are there fighting them, and they actively target and assassinate members of the legitimate government.

The newly announced COMUSFOR-A which will standup in mid-November will hopefully provide some much needed structure and chain-of-command that has been missing since NATO entered the picture.

PT
SENDS