Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
The trouble in the RC North sector is afaik concentrated on Pashtu minority regions.

You can have all the hearts and minds of most settlements, but meanwhile there are a few Pashtu settlements in between whose inhabitants feel suppressed by a corrupt non-Pashtu governor. The Taliban arrived and slowly gained footholds over the years.
Agreed, and this article makes it sound like Taliban there are a recent problem while Wikipedia cites problems with Pashtuns there dating back to 2007...even all the way back to our invasion of 2001 when Northern alliance troops took back control from the Taliban Pashtun. There are mostly non-Pashtuns in these northern provinces and land swaps could be arranged if the government desired to consolidate into two largely autonomous states and keep Pashtuns together in their own area.

It is interesting to note that Gormach district is mentioned in this new article, and Wikipedia says it is 97% Pashtun. Wikipedia of "Gormach district" also said it was part of Badghis province which is 62% Tajik and only 28% Pashtun as a whole. But wait, another Wikipedia says Gormach is NOW (as of Dec 2008) part of adjacent Faryab province...which is 53.5% Uzbek, 27% Tajik, and just 13% Pashtun. See the problem? A small Pashtun district that the Taliban is "invading" is surrounded by non-Pashtuns.

The result? This is one of the few areas where the Ring Road around Afghanistan is not fully finished. Check out this article about the contractor who was repeatedly kidnapped and threatened for trying to finish that section of road:

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ...672735403.html