Bloodshed is spreading across Afghanistan, warn aid workers

Aid workers involved in redevelopment are not only worried that the rising insecurity is jeopardising projects, but fear it is pushing disgruntled Afghans into the hands of the Taliban and adding fuel to a guerrilla war that now rages across much of the country.

In the past two months, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has suffered 12 attacks on trucks transporting goods, compared with 12 in the 10 months before that. Hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of aid has been stolen. "[The attackers] are typically stopping the vehicles that are carrying food, detaining the drivers and the vehicles for a period of time, offloading the food and usually allowing the drivers and the vehicles to go on," Rick Corsino, the WFP's country director, said.

A series of UN "security accessibility maps" obtained by The Independent paint the same picture, showing areas considered to be in the top danger category spreading across the country in the past year. In June 2006, few places fell into this category. Most of Helmand was then tagged as the second- worst level - a high risk/ volatile environment. Large swathes of the provinces of Kandahar and Zabul were high or medium risk, while a significant part of Uruzgan was high risk. Areas of extreme risk did exist in those regions and in eastern provinces such as Khost and Paktika, but they were relatively small in size.

The change since then is stark. According to the May 2007 map, almost all of Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan is regarded as an extreme risk/hostile environment. Huge sections of the eastern border with Pakistan also fall into this category. Meanwhile, two extreme-risk areas now sit on the fringes of Kabul province, and a high-risk area even exists inside its boundaries.

More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2617439.ece