Kandahar Gains Came with 'Brutal' Tactics

The Barack Obama administration's claim of "progress" in its war strategy is based on the military seizure of three rural districts outside Kandahar City in October.

But those tactical gains came at the price of further exacerbating the basic US strategic weakness in Afghanistan - antagonism toward the foreign presence shared throughout the Pashtun south.

The military offensive in Kandahar, which had been opposed clearly and vocally by the local leadership in the province, was accompanied by an array of military tactics marked by increased brutality. The most prominent of those tactics was a large-scale demolition of homes that has left widespread bitterness among the civilians who had remained in their villages when the US-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) offensive was launched, as well as those who had fled before the offensive.

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